A novel gardenia-shaped structure materials with variable stiffness under elastic tension

Nature's creatures often have unique behaviors that have inspired humans to create many bionic structures to meet engineering needs. In previous work, we reported a Gardenia-shaped structure (GSS) materials. Then an optimal GSS materials is developed in this paper. The optimal GSS materials shows its easily available variable stiffness characteristics from the testing in the homemade experimental bench. The variable stiffness characteristics of the optimal GSS materials were investigated by using both experimental and finite element methods in this paper. The experimental results show good agreement with the numerical results. The excellent performance of the optimal GSS materials has the potential for engineering applications to meet multi-stiffness requirements.