Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels

2021

Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels

Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels
Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels

Yuta Shimoda, Tomohiro Tachi, and Jun Sato. “Flat-Foldable Rigid Origami with Uniform Thickness Panels.” Advances in Architectural Geometry (2020): 196-215.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel design method of rigidly foldable origami composed of panels with uniform thicknesses. Our design is based on quadrilateral transformable mesh composed of degree-4 vertex with equal opposite sector angles, forming a family of corrugated surfaces that folds flat. We apply thickness to such a rigidly foldable surface by extending the axis-shift method to degree-4 vertex with equal opposite angles. Using our method, each panel ends up having uniform thickness. We investigate the necessary and sufficient conditions on the pair of opposite angles and the thickness ratio for each saddle-like vertex to maintain the kinematics after thicknesses were applied. We construct parametric design models based on the derived constraints and explore the design space. The design examples of transformable structures are potentially applicable to architectural design. The resulting structures efficiently fold up to completely flat states with 180° fold angles, wherein the total thickness is the sum of the thicknesses of overlapping panels. This also allows for fabrication by first cutting out each panel and subsequently assembling them in the flat-folded state.


A paper by Yuta Shimoda, Tomohiro Tachi, and Jun Sato, accepted to Advances in Architectural Geometry (AAG) 2020.

Proposes a design method for foldable architectural structures built from uniform-thickness panels and hinges. Based on a degree-4 quadrilateral mesh with equal opposite sector angles, achieving complete flat-foldability at a 180° fold angle.

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