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The versatile components could also allow construction in places previously considered impractical, including outer space, the University of Michigan (U-M) engineers said. The technology could also be used for structures that need to be built and then disassembled quickly, such as concert venues and event stages.
“With both the adaptability and load-carrying capability, our system can build structures that can be used in modern construction,” said Evgueni Filipov, associate professor of mechanical, civil and environmental engineering, and a corresponding author of the new work.
Principles of the origami art form allow for large materials to be folded and collapsed into small spaces. Researchers have struggled for years to create origami systems with the necessary weight capacities while keeping the ability to quickly deploy and reconfigure – but the U-M engineers have solved that problem, a university announcement claimed.
Structures that are possible with the new system include a 1m column that can support almost 2 tonnes of weight, while only weighing 7kg itself, and a 0.5m-wide cube that can deploy into a 4m footbridge or a 2m bus stop.
A key to the breakthrough came in the form of a different design approach provided by Yi Zhu, research fellow in mechanical engineering and first author of the study.
“When people work with origami concepts, they usually start with the idea of thin, paper-folded models, assuming your materials will be paper-thin,” Zhu said. “However, in order to build common structures like bridges and bus stops using origami, we need mathematical tools that can directly consider thickness during the initial origami design.”
To bolster weight-bearing capacity, many researchers have attempted to thicken their paper-thin designs in certain spots. The U-M found that uniformity is key, however.
“What happens is you add one level of thickness here, and a different level of thickness there, and it becomes mismatched,” Filipov said. “So when the load is carried through these components, it starts to cause bending.
“That uniformity of the component's thickness is what's key, and what's missing from many current origami systems. When you have that, together with appropriate locking devices, the weight placed upon a structure can be evenly transferred throughout.”
As well as carrying a large load, the system – known as the Modular and Uniformly Thick Origami-Inspired Structure – can adapt to become bridges, walls, floors, columns and other structures.
The research was aided by the Sequentially Working Origami Multi-Physics Simulator (Swomps), which predicts the behaviours of large-scale origami systems. Developed at U-M, the system has been available to the public since 2020.
The study was supported by funding from the US National Science Foundation and the Automotive Research Centre.
The work was published in Nature Communications.
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