Research on sound and energy absorption of biomimetic origami metamaterials based on experiments and deep learning

To address the limitation of traditional thin-walled tubes with low energy dissipation efficiency in lightweight protective structures, this study designed and fabricated a novel bio-inspired origami thin-walled tube (NBOT) via additive manufacturing, drawing inspiration from natural biological systems. The crashworthiness of NBOT was systematically investigated through compression tests and finite element simulations. To further reduce the initial peak force(F_max) while maintaining high specific energy absorption(SEA), the plastic hinge deformation mechanism of the NBOT was investigated, several geometric parameters influencing dynamic response were analyzed, and special emphasis was placed on six gradient designs for enhancing energy absorption performance. Subsequently, an integrated multi-objective optimization model for min F_max and max SEA was established based on a deep neural network, validated through impact simulations. The findings indicate that the optimized NBOT achieves a 91.29% increase in SEAand a 24.94% reduction in F_maxcompared to the traditional hexagonal straight tube. The energy absorption optimization was conducted for the anti-climbing device configuration, whereas the acoustic performance was experimentally examined using a noise-barrier panel configuration derived from the same NBOT geometric design philosophy. For the acoustic panel configuration, the NBOT-derived structure exhibits excellent sound absorption within the frequency range of 508Hzto1064Hz, with a peak sound absorption coefficient of 0.96, and this configuration demonstrates excellent mid-to-low-frequency sound absorption within the target railway noise range across a relatively broad bandwidth. This study provides a new bio-inspired strategy for engineering applications requiring lightweight, efficient energy and sound absorption. It holds broad application potential, particularly in the field of spacecraft protective layers.