Tristability of an orthotropic doubly curved shell

In this work, the structural response of a doubly curved orthotropic shell is tailored to achieve tristable geometries. This is done by varying both material properties and the Gaussian curvature of the surface profile. Tristability is predicted analytically, verified with finite element analysis and, for the first time, demonstrated experimentally. Predicted geometries of the tristable states are shown to compare well with experiment. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.