Substantial curvature effects on compliant serpentine mechanics

Wang, Y., Zhao, W., Du, Y. , Dai, Z., Liu, Y. and Xu, F. (2023) Substantial curvature effects on compliant serpentine mechanics. Mechanics of Materials, 184, 104732. (doi: 10.1016/j.mechmat.2023.104732)

Abstract

Serpentine interconnects (serpentines) with various degrees of curvature are often designed to absorb deformations and protect brittle active components in flexible devices. Serpentines with small curvature are modelled well using the traditional theory for doing so, but this overestimates the stretchability of serpentines with large curvature (e.g. the relative error exceeds 90%). Proposed here is a novel theoretical model in which a non-buckling serpentine is characterized as a large-curvature beam. Analytical solutions are derived, and systematic experiments and numerical simulations are reported to validate the accuracy and investigate geometrical dependence. It is found that (i) dimensionless geometrical parameters regulate the compliant mechanics of a serpentine, (ii) there is a certain arc angle that produces abnormal stretchability (i.e. the normalized stretchability is less than unity) and (iii) the flexibility and stretchability can be enhanced by between two and five orders of magnitude. This work offers a new way to construct optimal serpentine ribbons with large curvature for various applications.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 12202105, 12122204, 12072094, and 11872150), the China National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (Grant no. BX20220086), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant no. 2022M710751), Shanghai Post-doctoral Excellence Program, China (Grant No. 2022732), Shanghai Pilot Program for Basic Research-Fudan University, China (Grant No. 21TQ1400100-21TQ010), and Shanghai Shuguang Program, China (Grant No. 21SG05).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Du, Dr Yangkun
• Authors: Wang, Y., Zhao, W., Du, Y., Dai, Z., Liu, Y., and Xu, F.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Mathematics and Statistics > Mathematics
• Journal Name: Mechanics of Materials
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0167-6636
• ISSN (Online): 1872-7743
• Published Online: 28 June 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 Elsevier
• First Published: First published in Mechanics of Materials 184:104732
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher