Origami and 3D printing merge to create complex structures all at once

By combining the ancient art of origami and 21st century technology, researchers have created a one-step approach to making complex origami structures, including light weight, high-gloss, high-gloss, high-gloss, high-gloss, high-gloss paper. Scalability and power could be used in many fields, from biomedical devices to equipment used for space exploration. Until now, the manufacture of such structures involved several stages, plus a material and an assembly from smaller pieces.

"What we have here, it's the proof of concept of an integrated complex origami manufacturing system .Its potential for applications is enormous," said Glaucio H. Paulino, Professor, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. leader in the burgeoning field of origami engineering or using the principles of origami, mathematics and geometry to create useful objects. Last fall, Georgia Tech became the first university in the country to offer a course on origami engineering, taught by Paulino.

Researchers used a relatively new type of 3D printing called DLP (Digital Light Processing) to create revolutionary origami structures, capable not only of supporting a large weight, but also of being folded and folded to multiple times, in an action similar to the slow an accordion. When Paulino first reported these structures, or "zipper tubes", in 2015, they were made of paper and had to be glued. In current work, zipper tubes – and their complex structures – are composed of a single plastic (a polymer) and do not require assembly.

The work was reported in a recent issue of Soft matter, a journal published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The principal authors are Paulino; H. Jerry Qi, professor at Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering; and Daining Fang of Peking University and Beijing Institute of Technology. Other authors are Zeang Zhao, visiting student at Georgia Tech, now at Peking University; Qiang Zhang from Peking University; and Xiao Kuang and Jiangtao Wu from Georgia Tech.

Emerging technology

There are many types of 3D printing technologies. The inkjet, the best known, has been around for about 20 years. But until now, it was difficult to create 3D printed structures with complex hollow features associated with complex origami because it is difficult to remove the media needed to print these structures. In addition, unlike paper, 3D printed materials could not be folded multiple times without tearing.

Enter DLP and a bit of creative engineering. According to Qi, an emerging industry leader who collaborates with the Fang Group at Peking University, DLP has been in the lab for some time, but its commercialization has only been going on for about five years. Unlike other 3D printing techniques, it creates structures by printing successive layers of a liquid resin that is then cured or cured with ultraviolet light.

For the work in progress, the researchers first developed a new resin which, once hardened, is very resistant. "We wanted a material that was not only soft, but could also be folded hundreds of times without tearing," Qi said. Resin, in turn, is the key to an equally important piece of work: tiny hinges. These hinges, located along the folds where the origami structure folds, allow for folding because they consist of a layer of resin finer than that of the wider panels. (The panels make up the bulk of the structure.)

Together, the new resin and hinges worked. The team used DLP to create several origami structures ranging from individual origami cells composing the zipper tubes to the complex bridge consisting of many zipper tubes. All were subjected to tests that showed that they were not only able to support about 100 times the weight of the origami structure, but could also be folded and unfolded repeatedly without breaking. "I have an article that I printed about six months ago and that I'm showing people all the time, and it's still good," Qi said.

And after?

And after? Among other things, Qi strives to make printing even easier while exploring ways to print media with different properties. Meanwhile, Paulino's team has recently created a new origami pattern on the computer that he is passionate about but that he has been unable to physically achieve because he is so complex. "I think the new system could give it life," he said.