In the realm of fine dining, the napkin swan plated in front of you may seem like a simple creation, but crafted within its edges lies the secret to effective and efficient space travel beyond its artistry folding. In any origami construction, there lies thousands of complex geometric structures and patterns that borrow mathematical algorithms in creating reduced shapes for spatial purposes. From constructing a midpoint on a line, to observing specific divisions of a plane, origami utilizes the sciences of proportions, tessellations, and combinatorial properties, tucked away within each folded corner.
Beyond the use in heart stents, deploying vehicle airbags, and architecture, the applications of folding a medium have surpassed earth, with satellite framework largely depending on intricate compaction set to release into a projected shape. Formulated on the basis of a DNA helix where a polypeptide twists itself to form a rigid cylinder, this employment was similarly applied to the large axial-mode helical antennas used in space communication (Alberts et al., 2002). This use of reconfigurable origami is well suited for dire space conditions due to the compactive nature aboard space shuttles as seen in Figure 1. Maximum occupancy of space can be modelled by the following.
FCompact=Volume max/Volume min=bsin(β+γ)/2t
Where t represents thickness of origami substrate base, useful in a circumstance where mass and volume are tightly constrained (Yue, 2023).
Figure 1: The left diagram displaying the origami cylinder base of the helix as a flat surface before folding. On the right shows the structure when fully folded. The solid lines are segmented space and dashed lines are valleys that are being folded inwards or outwards. The conductive lines are placed along sides b, with the total length of each conductive arm being L (Liu et al., 2015).
In accordance with reduced physical space and collapsible demeanour, the crafted element of origami may also pose a possibility for increased strength, despite a material being thin, flimsy, and unconventional for the use of solidity. Using repeated basic units and a series of tessellation folding patterns, origami-based artificial muscles can reduce costs while still achieving multi-axial contractions, bendings, and torsions. These fluid-driven origami-based artificial muscles also known as FOAM has the ability to generate stresses of 600 kpa and produce power densities over 2 kW/kg with a contraction of 90% of the initial length. This technology uses fluid embedded within the crevices of its accordion-like pattern that creates a vacuum chamber where fluid can be sucked out, facilitating movement (Lee and Rodrigue, 2019).
Involving similar mechanisms, the origami-based vacuum pneumatic artificial muscle (OV-PAM), also exhibits origami-like function. This technology harnesses the power of pneumatics, contracting up to 99.7% of its length while producing large forces throughout the entire stroke regardless of low pressures. The OV-PAM was successfully practiced and tested, with a trial prototype able to lift a weight of 10 kg over a length of 80 mm, equal to 89% of its active length, while weighing only 53.0 g. This is the equivalent of architects manipulating the same quantity of materials in different ways, to produce various shapes that can make a building stronger and more sturdy (Lee and Rodrigue, 2019). In 2021, more recent utilizations of origami inspire what is considered the most powerful and sophisticated astronomical instrument ever produced. The James Webb Telescope employs many cutting-edge technologies as a large multi-layer sunshield, unfolding into 18-hexagonal mirror segments nicknamed the ‘origami telescope’ (Zheng and Jiang, 2022).
Each one of these industrial forms of art demonstrate scalable forces that fulfill essential conditions for space travel, such as decreased storage volume, lightweight density, and non-susceptibility to buckling and vibration, funding the future of aerospace engineering (Yue, 2023). Fortifying the interconnectedness of science and art, these innovations combine the strapping use of machinery, with the delicacy of paper folding, in an expression that has the potential to reshape the future of space technology and travel.
References
Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K. and Walter, P., 2002. The Shape and Structure of Proteins. In: Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th edition. [online] Garland Science. Available at: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26830/>.
Lee, J.-G. and Rodrigue, H., 2019. Origami-Based Vacuum Pneumatic Artificial Muscles with Large Contraction Ratios. Soft Robotics, [online] 6(1), pp.109–117. https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2018.0063.
Liu, X., Yao, S., Cook, B.S., Tentzeris, M.M. and Georgakopoulos, S.V., 2015. An Origami Reconfigurable Axial-Mode Bifilar Helical Antenna. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, [online] 63(12), pp.5897–5903. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAP.2015.2481922.
Yue, S., 2023. A Review of Origami-Based Deployable Structures in Aerospace Engineering. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, [online] 2459(1), p.012137. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2459/1/012137.
Zheng, W. and Jiang, L., 2022. Goldeneye: James Webb Space Telescope. Kexue Tongbao/Chinese Science Bulletin, 67(9), pp.834–841. https://doi.org/10.1360/TB-2022-0124.