Kirigami-inspired inflatables with programmable shapes

Abstract

Kirigami, the Japanese art of paper cutting, has recently enabled the design of stretchable mechanical metamaterials that can be easily realized by embedding arrays of periodic cuts into an elastic sheet. Here, we exploit kirigami principles to design inflatables that can mimic target shapes upon pressurization. Our system comprises a kirigami sheet embedded into an unstructured elastomeric membrane. First, we show that the inflated shape can be controlled by tuning the geometric parameters of the kirigami pattern. Then, by applying a simple optimization algorithm, we identify the best parameters that enable the kirigami inflatables to transform into a family of target shapes at a given pressure. Furthermore, thanks to the tessellated nature of the kirigami, we show that we can selectively manipulate the parameters of the single units to allow the reproduction of features at different scales and ultimately enable a more accurate mimicking of the target.