Origami technique finds applications out of this world Monday, 01 February 2016

A Japanese folding pattern at least 500 years old could be used to create space-minimising payloads to go to Mars or for implanting micro surgical devices.

The Miura-oru fold is a fundamental origami fold that was used as a decorative item in clothing at least as long ago as the 15th century. Based on a simple parallelogram, it can be packed into a flat, compact shape and unfolded in one continuous motion, making it ideal for packing rigid structures like solar panels.

Researchers led by L Mahadevan at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have been exploring the possibilities of the shape. They developed an algorithm that can create certain shapes using the Miura-ori fold, repeated with small variations. Given the specifications of the target shape, the program lays out the folds needed to create the design, which can then be laser printed for folding.

The program took into account several factors, including the stiffness of the folded material and the trade-off between the accuracy of the pattern and the effort associated with creating finer folds – an important characterisation because, as of now, these shapes are all folded by hand.

“We found an incredible amount of flexibility hidden inside the geometry of the Miura-ori,” said researcher Levi Dudte. “As it turns out, this fold is capable of creating many more shapes than we imagined.”

He suggested applications such as surgical stents that can be packed flat and pop-up into three-dimensional structures once inside the body or dining room tables that can lean flat against the wall until they are ready to be used.

“The collapsibility, transportability and deployability of Miura-ori folded objects makes it a potentially attractive design for everything from space-bound payloads to small-space living to laparoscopic surgery and soft robotics,” he said.

Starting with the basic mountain-valley fold, the team's algorithm determines how to vary it by gently tweaking it from one location to the other to make a vase, a hat, a saddle, or to stitch them together to make more and more complex structures.

“This is a step in the direction of being able to solve the inverse problem – given a functional shape, how can we design the folds on a sheet to achieve it,” Dudte said.

Mahadevan says the really exciting thing about the fold is it is completely scalable.

“You can do this with graphene, which is one atom thick, or you can do it on the architectural scale,” he said.

 

Shapes created using the Miura-0ri fold. Image: Harvard Engineering