How periodic surfaces bend without stretching

Abstract

Many compliant shell mechanisms are periodically corrugated or creased. Being thin, their preferred deformation modes are inextensional, i.e., isometric. Here, we report on a recent characterization of the isometric deformations of periodic surfaces. In a way reminiscent of Gauss theorem, the result builds a constraint that relates the ways in which the periodic surface stretches, effectively but isometrically, to the ways in which it bends and twists. Several examples and use cases are presented.