Structural shape deformation, in its conventional way, includes applying forces to a fixed-compliance structure to deform it to\ncertain shapes. Rather than addressing shape control in the established way (applying forces to elastically or plastically deform\na structure), this work studies the use of shape morphing, which involves combining applied forces and local modulus changes.\nSpecifically in this paper, a simply supported elastic beamthat can exhibit variable compliance behavior is selected as the model. This\nstudy focuses on the forward approach ofmorphing, that is, determining possible beamshapes due to the applied force andmodulus\nvariability Thegoal is to incorporate variable-modulusmaterials into a structure model and utilize the controllable modulus change\nto quantify the morphing of the structure with limited actuator numbers, locations, and force levels. The resulting morphed shapes\nare quantified in terms of various characteristic parameters. The study demonstrates that a larger, and in some cases nonintuitive,\nspace of shapes becomes possible when modulus change is utilized, for the same set of applied forces.
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