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New Publication: A Plane Linkage and Its Tessellation for Deployable Structure
From: Date: 2019-10-09 Deployable structure is an interdisciplinary research field of mechanical and structural engineering. It is widely used in many space structures such as satellite antenna, solar wing, space radar and telescope. Origami, as an ancient oriental art, can realize the transformation between two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional shape. As many space structures are rigid when deployed, rigid origami, a branch of origami, has become the focus of research. Rigid origami emphasizes that the facets around creases rotate without being stretched or bended during folding. From a viewpoint of kinematics, creases can be considered as hinges and facets can be considered as rigid links. Hence, the whole origami pattern can be converted into a network of mechanisms, and the kinematic theory can be applied to analyze the folding process and mechanical features of rigid origami. Therefore, the design scheme of large deployable structure can be obtained through the study of rigid origami.
The plane linkage (left) and the split pattern (right)
As early as 1942, Goldberg designed a simple origami pattern termed as a plane linkage, which could move rigidly with a large folding ratio and had the potential to build a large deployable structure in space. On September 3, 2019, Professor Yan Chen and Xuesong Chen of Tianjin University published a paper named A Plane Linkage and Its Tessellation for Deployable Structure in volume 142 of the journal Mechanism and Machine Theory. This paper outlined a novel design scheme for deployable structures by taking a plane linkage as an origami unit with a large deployable ratio. The mountain and valley (M-V) crease assignment and kinematics of the plane linkage were analyzed. Physical interference in the folding progress was discovered geometrically and resolved by the split-vertex technique. Finally, tessellation of the derived pattern was successfully used to create a large-deployable-ratio structure, which was found to exhibit considerable potential in future space applications.
Kinematic setup of the plane linkage
The regular hexagon pattern tessellated by the split pattern
Chen, X., Feng, H., Ma, J., & Chen, Y. (2019). A plane linkage and its tessellation for deployable structure. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 142, 103605.
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