Origami Metamaterials

In News 

• Researchers from Indian Institute of Technology Madras have developed such a material, called Origami metamaterials which could have many uses.

What is Origami Metamaterial?

• The origami metamaterials are made by joining panels along their edges to form ‘creases’ about which the structure locally ‘folds’.
• These combine the Japanese art of paper folding (origami) and the existing material of choice and fold it to obtain desired properties.

Benefits 

• There is a keen interest to develop materials that can be sandwiched in the fender system which will absorb the shock and prevent the interiors from being damaged when the car dashes against an obstacle.
• Origami metamaterials that crumple rather than tear, and take the impact, can play an important role in such situations
• When a material is crushed or stretched along a particular direction, it undergoes a modification in the perpendicular, or lateral, direction. For example, take a clay cube and compress it along one face, it will then bulge out in the sides. 

• The ratio between the deformation along with the force and the deformation in a direction lateral to the force is called the Poisson ratio. 
• The Poisson ratio can be positive or negative. 

What is Metamaterial?

• It is an artificially structured material that exhibits extraordinary electromagnetic properties not available or not easily obtainable in nature. 
• They have emerged as a rapidly growing interdisciplinary area, involving physics, electrical engineering, materials science, optics, and nanoscience. 
• The properties of metamaterials are tailored by manipulating their internal physical structure. 
  • This makes them remarkably different from natural materials, whose properties are mainly determined by their chemical constituents and bonds. 
• Metamaterials consist of periodically or randomly distributed artificial structures that have a size and spacing much smaller than the wavelengths of incoming electromagnetic radiation. 
• The primary reason for the intensive interest in metamaterials is their unusual effect on light propagating through them.

Source: TH