Design and analysis of reconfigurable and deployable thin-walled architectural equipment inspired by Mirror-Miura origami patterns

Abstract

In this paper, three reconfigurable Mirror-Miura origami (MMO) patterns are designed by the Miura origami units. The kinematics of three reconfigurable Mirror-Miura origami patterns are analyzed through an equivalent spherical 4R mechanism. On this base, different reconfigurable origami mechanisms are realized by using three different MMO patterns, which are developed in the form of an open-stacked array and a closed-stacked array. The physical properties (Equivalent volume and relative density) and mechanical properties (In-plane and out-plane Poisson's ratios) of the reconfigurable origami mechanisms are analyzed in this paper. Besides, the origami model of thick panels with three different MMO patterns is proposed to establish the deployable and reconfigurable architecture prototype with various shapes, which have been validated by experiments. Based on the MMO pattern, a reconfigurable square architecture filled with polyurethane foam caulk is selected to develop a closed-loop castle prototype. The load capacity of the closed-loop castle prototype with MMO patterns is tested, which indicates that the 1.7Kg filled square closed-loop architecture can suffer from the 94Kg weights in the longitudinal direction of the single closed-loop architecture, and the 8.5Kg weights in the side direction at least. Therefore, the proposed reconfigurable thin-walled architectural equipment designs with the MMO origami pattern have the characteristic of light-weight and high-bearing, which is promising for building engineering to improve the construction speed to some extent.