Electric field responsive origami structures using electrostriction-

based active materials

Saad Ahmed, Erika Arrojado, Nirmal Sigamani, Zoubeida Ounaies

Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802, U.S.A

ABSTRACT

The objective of origami engineering is to combine origami principles with advanced materials to yield active origami
shapes, which fold and unfold in response to external stimuli. We are investigating the use of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE), a
relaxor ferroelectric terpolymer, to realize origami-inspired folding and unfolding of structures and to actuate so-called
action origami structures. To accomplish these two objectives, we have explored different approaches to the P(VDF-TrFE-
CTFE) polymer actuator construction, ranging from unimorph to multilayered stacks. Electromechanical characterization
of the terpolymer-based actuators is conducted with a focus on free strain, force-displacement and blocked force. Moreover
dynamic thickness strains of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) terpolymer at different frequencies ranging from 0.1Hz to 10Hz is also
measured. Quantifying the performance of terpolymer-based actuators is important to the design of action origami
structures. Following these studies, action origami prototypes based on catapult, flapping butterfly wings and barking fox
are actuated and characterization of these prototypes are conducted by studying impact of various parameters such as
electric field magnitude and frequency, number of active layers, and actuator dimensions.

Keywords: Electroactive polymer (EAP), relaxor ferroelectric polymer, origami engineering, blocked force,
electrostriction, self-folding

1. INTRODUCTION

Origami is a Japanese art and historical practice of folding paper into abstract shapes, dating back to the 1600s 1. The word
origami comes from ori meaning “folding” and kami meaning “paper”2. For the first couple of hundred years origami was
practiced as an art and was not institutionalized or documented. The art of origami has seen a renaissance over the past 50-
60 years when documentation of structures took place and models were built by following specific folding sequences based
on instruction developed by origami artists. By then, the science and engineering communities realized that the concept of
origami can be utilized to improve traditional manufacturing methods such as reduced space requirements, reduced
material consumption, and improved energy efficiency. The potential application of origami engineering includes
deployable space structures 3, 4, automobile airbags5, photovoltaic cells for optimal capturing of daylight 6, 7, biomedical
applications 8, 9, robotics 10, foldable wings and airplanes 11-13, foldcore-based structure for improved mechanical properties
and impact resistance 14, 15, shelters16-18, micromechanical systems 19, DNA approaches at the nanoscale20, 21 and many
others. Origami engineering can lead to automated realization and functioning of arbitrary complex geometries utilizing
self-folding mechanism by means of external stimuli such as heating by absorption of light22, joule heating23, light24,
magnetic field25, and electric field26, 27. Each of these schemes to achieve active origami structures has some shortcomings.
Some mechanisms are irreversible 22, 23, 28 while for others, application are restricted by the working medium 29.
Electroactive polymers (EAPs), polymers that change shape in response to electrical stimulation, are suitable candidate to
achieve active origami structures as their actuation mechanism is reversible and do not require special medium other than

Behavior and Mechanics of Multifunctional Materials and Composites 2015, edited by Nakhiah C. Goulbourne
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 air 30. Recently, a class of EAPs, namely relaxor ferroelectric polymers such as P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) terpolymer and P(VDF-
TrFE-CTFE), have attracted considerable attention because of their flexibility, high electric energy density and high
dielectric permittivity31. Actuation mechanism of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) is reversible with high electrostrictive strain (~4%)
and relatively high elastic modulus (0.4GPa) yielding a high-elastic-energy density which made this electroactive polymer
a suitable candidate for active origami structures 32. P(VDF-TrFE) copolymer is ferroelectric in nature and it has been
reported that this ferroelectric copolymer can be converted into relaxor based terpolymer by random incorporation of the
bulky third monomer (CTFE or CFE) into the polymer chain. This random incorporation of CTFE in PDVF copolymer
disrupts the long range ordering of the ferroelectric polar phase resulting in the formation of nano-polar domains 33, 34.
When electric field is applied, the disordered nano-polar domain change their conformation to all-trans conformation which
leads to large electrostrictive strain. P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) terpolymer exhibits room temperature dielectric constant ~50 35.
This value coupled with high electrostrictive strain and Young’s modulus (0.4Gpa) renders the polymer suitable for
actuator applications. In this study, we report the potential and limitations of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) electroactive terpolymer
to enable active origami structures. Towards that end, we have done a comprehensive study starting from building origami
structures, to conducting force characterization experiment and lastly measuring the thickness strain of the films, to assess
the potential of this EAP. First we present some active origami structures actuated using P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) terpolymer
to demonstrate the potential of this terpolymer as a mean to achieve active origami, namely the catapult, flapping butterfly
wings and barking fox. These shapes were inspired by Robert Lang’s book on action origami 36. Free stain, force-
displacement and blocked force characterization experiments are conducted on multilayered terpolymer actuator to
correlate the force generated by the terpolymer with the force required to actuate an origami structure. Then some
fundamental studies are reported on the dynamic and quasi-static thickness contraction behavior of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE).
These characterization studies are essential to gain better understanding of the parameters that control the polymer’s
activation force and deformation.

2. EXPERIMENTAL

2.1. Processing of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) terpolymer film

P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) powder (61.8/30.4/7.8 mole %) was supplied by Piezotech Arkema group. Terpolymer powder is
dissolved in N,N-dimethylformamide as 12wt% solution and mixed for 2hrs using magnetic stirrer in a hot plate at 40°C
temperature. Then the mixture is degassed in vacuum chamber and solution cast as ~30μm films at 100 °C temperature for
2hrs under vacuum. These films are then annealed for 9hrs at 120°C under vacuum to improve crystallinity.

2.2. Active origami actuation

Silver is used as electrode; about 50nm layer of silver is deposited on the terpolymer films using Sputter Coater: Quorum
EMS 150 RS. Unimorph actuators are built using multilayered terpolymer films. Electrode is placed on every layer, then
the layers are stacked together and finally inactive layer is added to build an unimorph configuration. Scotch spray mount
adhesive from 3M is sprayed in between each layer to attach the layers together (figure 1). The inactive layers such as
action origami and other substrates are made from paper. Detail fabrication procedures of these actuators are described in
the result section. The active origami structures were actuated using a function generator from Agilent Technologies
(33220A, 20MHz) and a high voltage amplifier from Trek (Model 610E).

2.3. Force-displacement characterization

Free displacement and blocked force are two very important parameters to characterize the performance of electroactive
polymer (EAP) actuators. Free displacement is the maximum displacement of the actuator when there is no mechanical
constraints. On the other hand, blocked force in the maximum force exerted by the actuator when its motion is completely
restricted 37. The area under the force-displacement curve (figure 2 (d)) represents the work output by the

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 Stacked assembly

Substrate: Paper
Electrode : Sputtered silver
Active material: terpolymer

Figure 1. Schematic of a 4 layered bending actuator.

actuator for that particular applied electric field. The cantilever beam approach (figure 2) has been used to conduct the
blocked force and force displacement experiments by others 37, 38 . However we found that when the actuator travels a
certain distance and touches the force gauge node, the gauge only measures the horizontal component (Fx) of the total force
(F) induced by the actuator (figure 2 (c)). So we improved the experimental method where we can measure the resultant
induced force (F) (figure 3). In this method, at first the angle  at which the actuator would make contact with the gauge
node is measured by calculating the x and y travel distance of the actuator (figure 2 (c)). Then the gauge is rotated to 
using a multi-axis rotating stage from THORLab.

Terpolymer unimorph

Free displacement

Dleplacemxll

(a) (b) (d)

(c)

Figure 2. Schematic of force-displacement experiment: (a) free displacement (b) blocked force measurement (c) angle of contact
between the actuator tip and the force gauge node for a specific displacement (d) Force- displacement curve.

Figure 3. Improved experimental method to measure the blocked force. Here the force gauge is rotated to  angle so that the node of
the gauge becomes perpendicular to the tip of the actuator.

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 High precision digital force gauge SHIMPO (FGV-0.5XY) is used in this study. Multilayered unimorph terpolymer
actuator containing different number of layers ranging from 4 to 6 is studied. For all the actuators, 1 layer of paper is used
as inactive layer/ substrate. 50nm thick silver is sputtered as electrode using Sputter Coater: Quorum EMS 150 RS. Figure
1 shows the schematic of a 4 layered bending actuator build for force-displacement experiment. Dimension of each of the
actuator is 1cmx3cm.

2.4. Thickness actuation studies

For both dynamic and quasi-static thickness actuation a circular sample with 1.2cm diameter is used for actuation. The
diameter of the electrode area is 1cm. For the thickness study silver is deposited on the samples by evaporation (Kurt J
Lesker Lab-18 E-gun & Thermal evaporator). The thickness of the evaporated silver electrode is 100nm. For fundamental
study, the experimental set-up shown in figure 4 is used 39. This set-up measures the polarization (P) that develops across
a terpolymer sample as a function of applied electric field (E 33), and also measures strain (-S33) for corresponding electric
field (E33). The sample fixture contains a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) (figure 4 (a)). Strain is measured
using the LVDT and Stanford research 830 (SR 830) lock-in amplifier. The samples were sandwiched between two
connection nodes where the top connection node is the extended part of the LVDT. Two nodes make point contact with
the sample as the surface of the nodes are convex shaped which is important for minimal contact of the sample with the
fixture and also to minimize restriction during actuation motion. The fixture was placed inside a box containing Galden
oil which is an inert medium so that high voltages approaching breakdown can be applied. A Trek 609C-6 high voltage
DC amplifier is used to apply high electric field.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4. Polarization and strain experimental setup system (a) setup fixture is shown with the LVDT sensor (b) fixture is submerged
into Galden oil during measurement (c) silver electroded sample is sandwiched between two connection nodes.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section, we first focus on the actuation of action origami, more specifically butterfly, catapult and barking fox, using
tepolymer as active materials. We have presented a detail discussion on the implementation of terpolymer to actuate them
and also on characterizing the action origamis in terms of their output parameter (displacement angle) with respect to the
input parameters, such as induced electric field (E), number of layers of the terpolymer and frequency (f). Next, in order
to further understand and explain the behaviors of the action origami with respect to E, f and number of active layers, we
have focused our discussion on force-displacement, blocked force and fundamental thickness actuation study. We have
tried to correlate the actuation phenomena of the action origami with the results obtained from the force-displacement and
thickness actuation studies.

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 3.1 P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) actuated origami structures
Paper based action origami- flapping butterfly. This action origami is adopted from Robert Lang’s book 36. The flapping
butterfly is built using paper and excess layers are cut off to reduce the structural stiffness of the flapping butterfly origami.
Four, six and eight layered terpolymer actuator is placed on top of the paper made origami (figure 5). These terpolymer
actuators are built in the same way as shown in figure 1. Here paper based structure is acting as the inactive layer.

Flapping of the wings

Actuation of
butterfly using hand

Stacked/ multilayered
terpolymer

(a) (b)

Figure 5. (a) Schematic of flapping butterfly action origami with 6 layers of terpolymer as active part (b) manually actuated butterfly.
The solid lines with arrow indicates the required force direction to flap the wings and the flapping motion is indicated by the dashed
arrow.

Figure 6. Actuation of flapping butterfly when voltage is applied.

From figure 6 we see that, when electric field is applied, the butterfly starts flapping its wings. When V>0, the stacked
terpolymer actuator actively bends the middle part of the structure without any human assistance as shown in figure 5(b).
As a result of this the wings of the butterfly starts flapping its wings with an angular displacement () as shown in figure
6. In other words the manual actuation of the butterfly wing which was shown in figure 5 (b) is repeated using active EAPs
as shown in figure 6.
Now electric field with different frequencies (0.1Hz, 0.25Hz and 0.5Hz) are applied to study the effect of
frequencies and electric field on the actuation mechanism of the butterfly. It has been seen that for particular frequency
and number of active layer, the angular displacement increases with the induced electric filed (figure 7(a) and (b)). For a
particular electric field, electrostriction based terpolymer induces more strain at 0.1Hz frequency compared to 0.25Hz or

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 0.5Hz. As a result for a particular electric field and number of active layers, say 100MV/m and 6 layers, angular
displacement of the flapping wing is higher at 0.1Hz (figure 8 (b)) compared to 0.25Hz and 0.5Hz. To further investigate
and understand the effect of frequencies and electric field on the displacement angle of the butterfly wings we have done
fundamental thickness actuation study on the EAPs. Detail of these studies are described in the later section (see section
3.3).

10
O 0.1Hz O 0.1Hz
- - 0.25Hz 8
-9 - 0.25Hz
-0 -0.5Hz
6 -0 -0.5Hz

o
0 0'
o 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
E(MV/m) E(MV/m)

(a) (b)

Figure 7. Dynamic response of the butterfly wings at frequencies ranging from 0.1Hz to 0.5 Hz for (a) 6 layered strips and (b) 8
layered strips.

10 10

-0 -4 layers
8
w 8 -A -6 layers
-o
-0-8 layers
---A
6

,' A
4

'/
a 2

0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

E(MV/m) Frequency (Hz)

(a) (b)

Figure 8. (a) Displacement angles of the flapping butterfly for 4, 6 and 8 layers at 0.25Hz. (b) Angular displacement as a function of
frequency for 6 layered sample.

Figure 8 (a) indicates the dependence of actuation angle on the number of active layers. For a particular applied electric
field 8 layered origami is showing the highest actuation and 4 layered origami is showing the lowest. With the increase
of number of layers, induced forces also increases. More detail regarding induced force and number of active layers are
described in the force-displacement and blocked force (see section 3.2) section.

Paper based action origami-catapult. This action origami is also adopted from Robert Lang’s book 36. It is build using
paper and 4 and 6 layers of terpolymer film as actuator.

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 Figure 9. Schematic and real image of catapult action origami with multilayered layers of terpolymer as active part.

Figure 10 (a) shows the angular displacement of the catapult origami. When 3KV DC is applied, the catapult gives 19°
angular displacement. For this amount of angular displacement the catapult can successfully launch an object (figure
10(b)).

Object is ready to
' a launched
I ,

(a) (b)

Figure 10. (a) 19 degree angular displacement of the paper made catapult origami at 3KV (b) Launching of an object from the catapult
as 3KV DC is applied.

25
A 4 layers

06 layes
20

15

10

0
30 40 50 60 70 80 90
E(MV/m)

Figure 11. Angle of displacement VS electric field for the catapult for 4 and 6 layers. The points are linearly fitted and forecasted to
get a proper correlation.

Form the above figure (figure 11) it has been observe that with the increase of number of active layers displacement angle
increase. Similar trend was observed with the butterfly also. This angular displacement of the catapult is related to the
distance the projectile could travel when electric field is applied. So it can also be said that with the increase of number of
layers of active materials, the travel distance of the projectile also increases. Unlike butterfly origami, only DC electric
field is applied to actuate the catapult.

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 Paper based action origami-barking fox. This action origami is also adopted from Robert Lang’s book. Figure 12 shows
the schematic of the barking fox. Mechanism of actuation of the barking fox action origami is similar to that of the butterfly.
When electric field is applied (V>0), the stacked EAPs bends the middle part of the action origami (figure 12 (b) and figure
13). Because of this actuation, the jaw of the barking fox starts to actuate with an angular displacement () following the
ac electric field (figure 13).

Output
+ actuation of the
+ Ybarking fox jaw
+
+

Actuatio
direction o
Stacked/ multilayered the active
terpolymer part

(a) (b)

Figure 12. Schematic and real image of barking fox action origami with multilayered layers of terpolymer as active part. The solid
arrow in the schematic indicates the induced actuation of the terpolymer. And the dashed arrow indicates output actuation motion of
the baking fox due to the induced actuation of the terpolymer (solid arrow).

v=o
r'6 .
..
.
,
, . , ,.
.

. . .
.
Angular displacement
of the barking dog
V>o

Actuation direction of the terpolymer

Figure 13. Actuation of barking fox when electric field is applied.

Due to the complexity involves with the mechanism of the barking fox’s actuation, we have tried several approaches, to
maximize the actuation output. We tried approaches like hanging the sample (barking fox) in different ways, using active
materials with different aspect ratio and also modifying the structural stiffness of the origami structure (see figure 14). All
the baking fox samples are made with 6 layered terpolymer. And also for all the approaches, AC electric field with 0.1Hz
frequency was applied to narrow down the best configuration to maximize the actuation. Total 4 samples were tested. The
samples are summarized in table 1.

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 Barking Dog Schematics Wood post

Horizontal Mounting: one pin through Lateral Mounting: 2 pins through the center
barking dog jaw in the ground, jaw crease on back of barking dog mouth into wood
opens and closes in z direction. Here Z post, jaw opens and closes in Y direction
direction is opposite to gravity.

(a)

0.5cm
0.5cm

5cm

115cm
i
Hexagonal actuator: Rectangle Strip Actuator Polypropylene panel

Paper
Terpolymer strips with
Barking fox with polypropylene (PP)
increased aspect ration (6.67)
panel. PP panels are used to see the
to see the effect of aspect
effect of stiffener on the actuation
ration

(b) (c) (d)

Figure 14. (a) Schematic showing two different ways of mounting the barking fox. In horizontal mounting, the origami has to actuate
in direction opposite to the gravity. In the lateral mounting, the origami structure is mounted in such a way that it can be actuated
ignoring the effect of gravity. (b) a paper made barking fox with hexagonal shaped terpolymer strips (c) barking fox origami with
rectangular terpolymer strips to examine the effect of aspect ratio (d) Polypropylene(PP) panels are attached with the paper made
action origami figure to examine the effect stiffness on the actuation.

Table 1. Description of the samples

Sample 1 6 layers, Horizontal mounting with pin at jaw, hexagonal terpolymer actuator
Sample 2 6 layers, lateral mounting, reinforced with polypropylene panels, hexagonal terpolymer actuator
Sample 3 6 layers, lateral mounting, hexagonal terpolymer actuator
Sample 4 6 layers, lateral mounting, rectangular (high aspect ratio strip) terpolymer actuator

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 25 35 45 55 65 75 85
E (MV/m)

Figure 15. Dynamic response of the barking fox to examine the effect of different configurations on induced actuation. For all cases
electric field is applied at 0.1 Hz frequency.

From the above figure (figure 15) it has been observed that sample 4 is showing highest actuation among the 4 samples.
So it can be concluded that the aspect ratio and lateral mounting are favorable factors for the induced actuation. High
aspect ratio helps to guide the actuation force in the desired direction (figure 13).

3.2 Blocked force and force-displacement

In this section we have presented the amount of induced forces generated by the terpolymer based actuators for different
number of polymer layers, different induced electric field and travel distances. As mentioned in the experimental section
we have used the cantilever beam approach and also made sure that tip of the force gauge is perpendicular to the actuator
when the measurement was done.

40 0.00
O40MV/m
a. 4 layers
35 A 50MV/m O
O 06 Layers
O15MV/m
30 0.03

25
iE 20
2

0.01

0
0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 04
X /1 X/L

(a) (b)

Figure 16. (a) Force as a function of normalized tip displacement 4 layered bending actuator. Here, X is the tip displacement of the
actuator and L is the total length of the actuator. The straight lines are linear fitted. (b) Force VS normalized tip displacement for both
4 and 6 layered samples. In both cases 50MV/m electric field is applied.

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 From figure 16 (a), it is evident that for a number of active layer, which is 4 in this case, with the increase of electric field
the induced force increases. The macroscopic response of the actuator and the induced force is coupled with the electrical
stimulation of the dipoles of the electroactive terpolymer. As the electric field increases, disordered nandomains of the
terpolymer get more stimulus which is the reason behind the electrostrictive strain 32. And due to electromechanical
coupling this stimulation of nandomains result into macroscopic actuation and induced forces. It is also evident that, for 6
layers the output force is high compared to 4 layers (figure 16(b)). This also explains why there is a significant increase in
the actuation of butterfly as the number of layers increased from 4 to 8 (figure 8 (a)) and same goes for the catapult (figure
11)

3.3 Thickness actuation studies of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) terpolymer

In this section we have discussed the electrostrictive thickness actuation results of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) terpolymer for
frequencies ranging from quasi-static ( step signal) to 10Hz. Measurement and comparison of thickness strain for wide
range of frequencies is important since both AC and DC electric field are required to actuate a origami depending upon
the structure and actuation mechanism of origami structure. For example we applied AC electric field at different
frequencies to actuate the butterfly (figure 6) and DC electric field to actuate the catapult (figure 10).
The quasi-static thickness actuation is conducted using the electric field profile shown in figure 17 (a). The
measured strain response (S33) vs. time is displayed in figure 17 (b). When no step field is applied, at time t<0, strain is
zero. But when the electric field is applied E33 (t≥0), there is an abrupt change in thickness strain (figure17 (b)). This
portion of strain may be termed as instantaneous strain. As the field (E33) acts continuously on the sample, the strain tends
to reach a plateau with time (figure 17(b)). When the applied electric field is switched off, the strain again abruptly reaches
the zero value (figure 17(b)). The difference between the two values, strain at t=0sec (lowest strain) and strain at t=10 sec
(highest strain) from the strain vs. time graph gives the thickness strain (S33) for that particular electric field.

0
45

40 -0.2

35 -0.4
30
E -0.6
j 25
î
W 20
7 -0.8

15
''' -1

10 -1.2

5
-1.4
o 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
o 2 4 6 8 10
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(a) (b)

Figure 17. (a) User defined square shaped step electric field at 0.1Hz frequency (b) corresponding strain response.

To characterize dynamic thickness actuation, sinusoidal shaped electric fields with two frequencies, 1 Hz and 10 Hz, are
also applied on samples electroded with silver. Figure 18 represents strain as a function of electric field for both quasi-
static and dynamic actuations. It is found that quasi-static strain is showing little higher induced strain compared to dynamic
strain. In case of quasi-static strain, the dipoles get enough time to give saturated response. Dynamic strain for 1Hz is
higher compared to 10Hz as at 10Hz the dipoles don’t get enough time to induce saturated actuation.

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 20 40 60 80 100 120

E (MV/m)

Figure 18. Strain as a function of electric field for both quasi-static and dynamic field (1 Hz and 10Hz).

Results from figure 18 also explains why there is difference in response when electric fields are applied at different
frequencies (figure 8(b)).

4. CONCLUSION

In this article our objective was to show the potential of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) relaxor terpolymer to actuate active origami
structures. We have shown that terpolymer can be used to actuate paper based origami structure which requires proper
selection of the number of active layers and also proper placement of the active part on the origami structure. We have
also done force-displacement characterization of multilayered terpolymer actuators to correlate the force required to
actuate an origami with the force induced by different number of layers. We have just scratched surface of terpolymer to
actuate paper made origami. More experiments on force-displacement characterization have to be conducted with wide
range of number of active layers so that more complex origami structures can be actuated. We have also presented dynamic
and quasi-static thickness actuation results which are also required for active origami as both AC and DC electric filed is
required to actuate an origami structure depending on its mechanism.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation grant number EFRI 1240459 and the
Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

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