Origami Mechanical Engineering
Origami is the japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figure.
Origami mechanical engineering. Its use of geometrical shapes makes it a curious art form one that could inspire mechanical engineering design. According to northeastern university researcher soroush kamrava the future solar panels and air bags will be informed by origami designs. Researchers have explored for decades how to leverage origami folding techniques in advanced engineering applications such as morphing structures and devices.
Folding linkages in one dimension planar shapes in two dimensions and polyhedra in three dimensions can now be efficiently designed and analyzed using origami concepts. On first glance it s surprising that origami a centuries old art of folding paper to achieve particular aesthetics is applicable to engineering. Today mechanical engineers build on origami principles to make prototype machines that collapse flex or unfurl.
Origami is inspiring a plethora of new engineering designs. Even though mechanical engineering has always been concerned with devices that allow relative motion between components which in a sense can be considered folding the field of mechanical engineering origami is a recent development and it is leading to new and useful results. Engineering applications of origami can broadly be categorized into three areas.
Only an interdisciplinary effort combining origami design 3d laser printing with nanoscale resolution and in situ electron microscopy mechanical testing could reveal the unprecedented combination of properties our work demonstrated and their potential impact on future applications added paulino who contributed to establishing the national science foundation emerging frontiers in research and innovation program named odissei origami design for integration of self assembling systems. Origami engineering engineers have also taken to origami as a source of inspiration for a variety of applications. With origami underpinning their core spacecraft will harbor compact solar panels.
These structures are designed to fold up compactly during stowage. Origami allows you to take a flat sheet of material and convert it to almost any shape only by folding. The main application area is probably unsurprisingly deployable structures.
