Work

Folding Flat Crease Patterns With Thick Materials

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Modeling folding surfaces with nonzero thickness is of practical interest for mechanical engineering. There are many existing approaches that account for material thickness in folding applications. We propose a new systematic and broadly applicable algorithm to transform certain flat-foldable crease patterns into new crease patterns with similar folded structure but with a facet-separated folded state. We provide conditions on input crease patterns for the algorithm to produce a thickened crease pattern avoiding local self-intersection, and provide bounds for the maximum thickness that the algorithm can produce for a given input. We demonstrate these results in parameterized numerical simulations and physical models.

Source: Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics

DOI: 10.1115/1.4031954

Authors: Jason S. Ku, Erik D. Demaine

Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Materials and Mechanics

Subfield: Mechanical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, Division of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation

Awards: G2214509564, EFRI-ODISSEI: Programmable Origami for Integration of Self-assembling Systems in Engineered Structures, Collaborative Research: An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines