Morphing Multiscale Textured Shells

Abstract

Forming surface features in a shell, and combining this 'texture' with prestress, can lead to a range of distinctive multistable properties. This paper is concerned with describing the structural properties of shell surfaces where local indentation and corrugation are used to replace the isotropic behaviour of the shell, and studies the possibilities of using these shells as morphing and multistable structures. By taking advantage of the anisotropic properties of the textured shell structure and further prestressing the shell, a range of interesting multistable properties can be achieved. This study investigates the properties of a particular example of a textured shell surface using experimental and computational techniques. Remarkably, these results shown that dimpled textured shells can achieve an effective Poisson's ratio in bending of close to -1, providing interesting insights into the remarkable multistable properties that textured shell surfaces can achieve.