A New Design Approach to Thick-Fold Origami: Using Chamfered Panels to Create Scalable Origami Structures

Abstract

Origami tessellations have become a popular area of research in recent years. Origami patterns like the Miura-Ori and Yoshimura tessellation have unique properties that make them ideal for applications across many engineering disciplines. That being said, applications in civil engineering and architecture have not yet been widely realized. One main reason for this is that traditional origami theory assumes a material of zero- thickness. When thickness is added to an origami pattern, it can no longer fold properly. Thus, to design structures out of steel plates, woods, or composites, a thick-fold origami design approach must be used. Existing thick-fold origami work has been successful in emulating 2D folding behavior but often results in unstable intermediate states. Unfortunately, it is the geometry of these intermediate states that is best suited for civil engineering applications.

This research proposes and evaluates the efficacy of a new approach to thick-fold origami design. This approach seeks to create structural stability at final deployment angle. This is achieved by angling the individual panel edges of the origami structure such that they become flush at final deployment. These kinds of edge angles are called chamfers. While this approach may restrict the range of 2D folding behavior, it is likely to be better suited for load-bearing civil engineering applications.

This design approach relies heavily on computational and parametric design. By using a parametric scripting language, the proposed method can be automated, exact panel geometries can be determined, and structures can be optimized. In this project, scripts were used to articulate common 2D origami patterns, add thickness, and create geometries for fabrication. In addition, iterations of emergency shelter structures were designed and analyzed to better evaluate the design approach. The results from this project show that the proposed method is able to produce thickened origami geometry that both exhibits shell like structure and 2D folding behavior.