The application of Origami folds creates a structure that is both hard and flexible

Researchers in the US and Japan have created a collapsible bearing structure inspired by the folds of Origami paper folding games. This design forms paper structures with a stiffness that is large enough to withstand the loads but can also be stowed for transport or storage.

Create load-bearing structure from Origami paper folding game

Designed by a collaborative research team from 3 universities including the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Georgia Institute of Technology and Tokyo University, this puzzle tube is inspired by a paper folding technique called Miura. -ori . This technique creates zigzag lines on a sheet of paper, allowing you to fold from a large sheet of paper to a much smaller size paper.

Each sheet of paper with Miura-ori folds is highly flexible and can be folded flat. Initially when sticking two sheets together, the researchers created a tube with higher rigidity but did not fold in many directions. Finally, they interlocked two zigzag-shaped tubes in a zip-lock style, creating a more rigid structure than before, making it difficult to twist or bend.

Chain zigzag of parallelograms.

Professor Glaucio Paulino from the Georgia Institute of Technology said: "The geometric shape plays a huge role. We put two tubes together in an incredible way. What we want is a flexible structure. They are just paper but they have very high hardness. "

Miura-ori folds form a zigzag sequence of parallelograms and open angles also vary with the size of the fold. The researchers said that dual-lock setup allows mounting two tubes with different opening angles and they can also combine multiple tubes with different geometry to create three-dimensional structures, such as one. curtain or tower.

Evgueni Filipov, a Illinois researcher, said: " The ability to change functions immediately is a real advantage of Origami. When these transformable structures are available, you can change the function. In addition, you can also reconstruct the structure and when changing material properties, you can make the structure harder or softer based on the intended use. "

The team created paper prototypes for demonstration, but they said that this imaging technique could be applied to many other thin materials, such as plastic or metal. In addition, this technique can be scaled , which means it can be used on everything from micro robots and biomedical devices to buildings and bridges. In the coming time, researchers will consider new types of combinations with many different folding angles and apply this technique to many other materials.

This is not the first time Origami inspired scientific discoveries. The folds in traditional paper folding games of Japan have been applied in many areas such as military tents, drone aircraft design, solar panels for satellites, cheap paper batteries, stretch batteries. Wearing equipment to load-bearing structures like bridges and roads.