From Crease Pattern to Product: Considerations to Engineering Origami-Adapted Designs

Abstract

Origami art provides possible inspiration for products that require extreme portability, stowability, and deployability. Origami-based design represents a possible source of innovative configurations for engineered products, which could meet challenging design situations. However, a fundamental gap exists between paper-based origami art and engineered products. This work proposes a basic terminology for origami-based design, and presents areas of consideration for cases where the final engineering design is directly related to a crease pattern. The considerations are applied after the crease pattern has been selected for a given application. Four areas of consideration are discussed: 1) rigid-foldability 2) crease characterization 3) material properties and dimensions and 4) manufacturing. Two diverse examples are used to illustrate these areas of consideration: design for a backpack shell, and design of a shroud for an adjustable C-Arm x-ray device.