Cutting and Folding Thick-Panel Miura-Ori With One DoF

Abstract

Abstract Miura-ori or Miura fold is a rigid foldable and flat foldable origami pattern that is tessellated by identical parallelogram facets. The parallelograms can rotate about the creases without twisting or stretching the facets. A Miura-ori demonstrates a bidirectional folding process that can transform a large thin sheet into a compact volume with a single degree of freedom (DoF). However, large gaps along the hinges or uneven surfaces in deployed states are inevitable when thick panels are used. In this paper, the authors add uniform thickness to a Miura-ori tessellation and connect the thick panels by revolute joints on either the top or the bottom facets of the panels for valley creases or mountain creases, respectively. The thick-panel assembly is then a structure with no mobility. Regular slits are made on some facets of the tessellations not only to remove the excess constraints, but also to accommodate the panel thickness during the folding process. Having made the cuts, a thick-panel assembly is demonstrated to fold into a package with one DoF. We further notice that although the slits open up during the folding process, they are closed in the deployed state of the assembly, giving two flat and continuous surfaces. The same method can also be applied to fold the derivatives of Miura-ori such as double-corrugated patterns.