Georgia Tech
professor Glaucio Paulino and University of Illinois graduate researcher
Evgueni Filipov
developed an origami “zippered tube” folding pattern that allows them to build
structures with
much greater stiffness than a single sheet of paper. They collaborated with
University of
Tokyo professor Tomohiro Tachi (not pictured). Photo by Rob Felt
(September 8, 2015) From
shipping and construction to outer space, origami could put a folded twist on
structural engineering.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of
Tokyo have developed a new “zippered tube” configuration that makes paper
structures that are stiff enough to hold weight yet can fold flat for easy
shipping and storage. Their method could be applied to other thin materials,
such as plastic or metal, to transform structures from furniture to buildings
to microscopic robots.
Illinois graduate researcher Evgueni Filipov, Georgia Tech
professor Glaucio Paulino and University of Tokyo professor Tomohiro Tachi
published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Origami structures would be useful in many engineering and
everyday applications, such as a robotic arm that could reach out and scrunch
up, a construction crane that could fold to pick up or deliver a load, or
pop-up furniture. Paulino sees particular potential for quick-assembling
emergency shelters, bridges and other infrastructure in the wake of a natural
disaster.
“Origami became more of an objective for engineering and a
science just in the last five years or so,” Filipov said. “A lot of it was
driven by space exploration, to be able to launch structures compactly and
deploy them in space. But we’re starting to see how it has potential for a lot
of different fields of engineering. You could prefabricate something in a
factory, ship it compactly and deploy it on site.”
Origami
"zipper tubes," interlocking zigzag paper tubes, can be configured to
build a variety
of structures that
have stiffness and function, but can fold compactly for storage or shipping.
Click to see a
slideshow Photo by Rob Felt
The researchers use a particular origami technique called
Miura-ori folding. They make precise, zigzag-folded strips of paper, then glue
two strips together to make a tube. While the single strip of paper is highly
flexible, the tube is stiffer and does not fold in as many directions.
The researchers tried coupling tubes in different
configurations to see if that added to the structural stiffness of the paper
structures. They found that interlocking two tubes in zipper-like fashion made
them much stiffer and harder to twist or bend. The structure folds up flat, yet
rapidly and easily expands to the rigid tube configuration.
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