Design of Single Degree-of-Freedom Triangular Resch Patterns with Thick-panel Origami

Abstract

As a series of tessellation origami patterns consisting of more than one type of polygons, Resch patterns are generally rigid foldable but with a large number of degrees of freedom (DOFs). The patterns are not flat foldable, instead the fully folded configuration is a sandwich style in flat profile. In order to achieve one-DOF forms of triangular Resch pattern units, the thick-panel technique is employed at vertices to replace spherical linkages with spatial linkages. The compatibility among all the vertices is studied by a systematic kinematic analysis of the thick-panel Resch pattern. Finally, two design schemes are obtained to form a one-DOF origami structure between the initial planar structure and the fully folded 3D sandwich structure with dome-curved intermediate folded configurations. The one-DOF Resch pattern structure can be used to generate reliable shape transformation.