Comparative Study on Axial Compression Behaviour of Semi-Reentrant Miura-Origami Inspired, Hexagonal and Trapezoidal Auxetic Structures for Energy Absorption and Tunable Mechanical Properties Using Finite Element Simulation

In this study, a semi-reentrant Miura-origami (SR-MO) inspired auxetic structure, trapezoidal and hexagonal honeycomb configurations, is investigated and extended to a sandwich model using finite element simulation. The SR-MO structure is designed by in-ter-assembling semi-reentrant unit cells into a metamaterial configuration with in-ward-angled edges modifying conventional hexagonal cells, where only one side of each hexagon is inclined inward to form a semi-reentrant geometry. The geometric relation-ships and relative density of the structure are systematically established. A Miura-inspired single unit cell is first introduced, and the unfolding process of the SR-MO structure under compression is analyzed. Finite element method (FEM) simulations demonstrate that the SR-MO metamaterial exhibits superior energy absorption (EA) and specific energy absorption (SEA) characteristics compared to the trapezoidal and hexagonal configurations. Notably, the SR-MO structure shows the highest out-of-plane com-pression resistance and stability, achieving an energy absorption of 80.5% and a specific energy absorption of 80.9%, surpassing other topologies. The peak and plateau forces during in-plane compression are also highest for the SR-MO design, reflecting its enhanced mechanical stability. These results confirm that the semi-reentrant Miura-origami (SR-MO) configuration pro-vides exceptional potential for applications requiring efficient energy dissipation and structural stability such as light-weight aerospace structures, with energy efficiencies of 89% and 70% for the out-of-plane and in-plane configurations, respectively.