No Arabic abstract
Inspired by the allure of additive fabrication, we pose the problem of origami design from a new perspective: how can we grow a folded surface in three dimensions from a seed so that it is guaranteed to be isometric to the plane? We solve this problem in two steps: by first identifying the geometric conditions for the compatible completion of two separate folds into a single developable four-fold vertex, and then showing how this foundation allows us to grow a geometrically compatible front at the boundary of a given folded seed. This yields a complete marching, or additive, algorithm for the inverse design of the complete space of developable quad origami patterns that can be folded from flat sheets. We illustrate the flexibility of our approach by growing ordered, disordered, straight and curved folded origami and fitting surfaces of given curvature with folded approximants. Overall, our simple shift in perspective from a global search to a local rule has the potential to transform origami-based meta-structure design.
The cosmic web (the arrangement of matter in the universe), spiders webs, and origami tessellations are linked by their geometry (specifically, of sectional-Voronoi tessellations). This motivates origami and textile artistic representations of the cosmic web. It also relates to the scientific insights origami can bring to the cosmic web; we show results of some cosmological computer simulations, with some origami-tessellation properties. We also adapt software developed for cosmic-web research to provide an interactive tool for general origami-tessellation design.
Shape-morphing finds widespread utility, from the deployment of small stents and large solar sails to actuation and propulsion in soft robotics. Origami structures provide a template for shape-morphing, but rules for designing and folding the structures are challenging to integrate into broad and versatile design tools. Here, we develop a sequential two-stage optimization framework to approximate a general surface by a deployable origami structure. The optimization is performed over the space of all possible rigidly and flat-foldable quadrilateral mesh origami. So, the origami structures produced by our framework come with desirable engineering properties: they can be easily manufactured on a flat reference sheet, deployed to their target state by a controlled folding motion, then to a compact folded state in applications involving storage and portability. The attainable surfaces demonstrated include those with modest but diverse curvatures and unprecedented ones with sharp ridges. The framework provides not only a tool to design various deployable and retractable surfaces in engineering and architecture, but also a route to optimizing other properties and functionality.
Given a flat-foldable origami crease pattern $G=(V,E)$ (a straight-line drawing of a planar graph on a region of the plane) with a mountain-valley (MV) assignment $mu:Eto{-1,1}$ indicating which creases in $E$ bend convexly (mountain) or concavely (valley), we may emph{flip} a face $F$ of $G$ to create a new MV assignment $mu_F$ which equals $mu$ except for all creases $e$ bordering $F$, where we have $mu_F(e)=-mu(e)$. In this paper we explore the configuration space of face flips for a variety of crease patterns $G$ that are tilings of the plane, proving examples where $mu_F$ results in a MV assignment that is either never, sometimes, or always flat-foldable for various choices of $F$. We also consider the problem of finding, given two foldable MV assignments $mu_1$ and $mu_2$ of a given crease pattern $G$, a minimal sequence of face flips to turn $mu_1$ into $mu_2$. We find polynomial-time algorithms for this in the cases where $G$ is either a square grid or the Miura-ori, and show that this problem is NP-hard in the case where $G$ is the triangle lattice.
Traditional origami starts from flat surfaces, leading to crease patterns consisting of Euclidean vertices. However, Euclidean vertices are limited in their folding motions, are degenerate, and suffer from misfolding. Here we show how non-Euclidean 4-vertices overcome these limitations by lifting this degeneracy, and that when the elasticity of the hinges is taken into account, non-Euclidean 4-vertices permit higher-order multistability. We harness these advantages to design an origami inverter that does not suffer from misfolding and to physically realize a tristable vertex.
Origami and crumpling are two extreme tools to shrink a 3-D shell. In the shrink/expand process, the former is reversible due to its topological mechanism, while the latter is irreversible because of its random-generated creases. We observe a morphological transition between origami and crumple states in a twisted cylindrical shell. By studying the regularity of crease pattern, acoustic emission and energetics from experiments and simulations, we develop a model to explain this transition from frustration of geometry that causes breaking of rotational symmetry. In contrast to solving von Karman-Donnell equations numerically, our model allows derivations of analytic formula that successfully describe the origami state. When generalized to truncated cones and polygonal cylinders, we explain why multiple and/or reversed crumple-origami transitions can occur.