Geometry and Mechanics of Multistable Origami Blocks

TL;DR

This paper investigates the design and mechanical properties of multistable origami blocks for large-scale, deployable architectural systems, emphasizing stability, reconfigurability, and load-bearing capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces geometric and mechanical design methods for multistable origami blocks that can interlock and support large structures, addressing stability and deployability challenges.

Findings

Design methods for stable multistable origami configurations.

Mechanical strategies for stiffness control and load support.

Potential for reconfigurable, self-supporting architectural systems.

Abstract

Origami, which transforms flat sheets into three-dimensional shapes through folding patterns, has inspired the emergence of deployable systems in architecture and civil realms. Most existing origami-inspired deployable systems are based on rigid or curved-crease origami types. However, they inherently lack shape stability and require additional supports to maintain their deployed shapes. These lead to a fundamental trade-off between deployability and shape stability, which remains a major challenge for large-scale origami systems. Multistable origami, in contrast, achieves energy stability across multiple configurations during deployment. This unique characteristic enables it to maintain stable shapes even under external loads. These properties allow multistable origami to achieve both shape stability and deployability, offering high potential for self-supporting deployable systems in architectural applications. However, realizing both large-scale and structurally stable systems using a single origami faces many practical constraints. To overcome these limitations, origami block assembly has emerged as an effective approach to form global systems. This approach enables flexibility in global geometry and mechanical behaviors while offering reconfigurability. These indicate that the complementary potential of multistable origami and block assemblies can provide a promising solution. This study aims to address the challenges of applying deployable origami to large-scale architectural systems by leveraging the potential of multistable origami as modular building blocks. From a geometric standpoint, we explore design methods for stable configurations of multistable origami blocks that can align and interlock with each other. From a mechanical standpoint, we explore stiffness-controllable design methods that ensure self-supporting and load-bearing capabilities through geometric parameters.