Quantify the torsional benefit of alternating helical chirality

Quantify the significance of alternating the chirality of adjacent helical segments for torsional rigidity relative to a simpler continuous helical backbone, with the aim of determining whether alternating chirality produces more uniform omnidirectional bending behavior.

Background

The variable-length, force-locking continuum mechanism uses adjacent helical unit cells with alternating chirality. The authors hypothesize that this architecture improves torsional rigidity, but the magnitude of that improvement relative to a continuous helical backbone has not been established. Resolving this comparison is important for achieving uniform bending behavior in all directions and for enabling three-dimensional curvature through additional rods.