Our new paper in PR-Research shows that origami can be used as a versatile scaffold to construct 2D and 3D Bravais lattices, and continuously transform them between different symmetric configurations via folding.
In a novel manner, origami structures are characterized and harnessed as versatile reconfigurable scaffolds to construct transformable lattices with continuous symmetry evolution.
Lattice structure plays an irreplaceable role in determining the physical properties of many natural and engineered materials. However, constructing lattice structures from the ground-up is quite challenging, and once the material is synthesized, its constituent lattice typically cannot be modified. Recently, Hongbin Fang, at the Fudan University, China, and his collaborators from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the Clemson University in the U.S.A. explore a novel and comprehensive origami-based solution to the long-standing challenge regarding lattice-based materials: how to systematically construct a lattice and transform it among different symmetric configurations in a predictable, scalable, and reversible manner? Historically, origamis have been analyzed based on the spatial positions and orientations of its facets and creases. In this study, the researchers examine the origami folding through a completely different lens by asking: how folding can spatially arrange and reconfigure the characteristic entities in the origami?
By bridging the lattice geometry and rigid-folding kinematics, the researchers reveal that origami can be used as a versatile scaffold to construct all types of 2D and 3D Bravais lattices. Via rigid folding, the origami lattices can undergo all diffusionless phase transformations (i.e., dilation, extension, contraction, shear, and shuffle). Such folding-induced lattice transformations can trigger fundamental lattice-symmetry switches, which can either maintain or reconstruct the nearest neighborhood relationships according to a continuous symmetry measure.
The proposed method is a radical departure from the current approach of characterizing origami. The theoretical framework of origami lattice can open up new avenues towards engineering metamaterials and metastructures that can alter their underlying lattice structures on-demand, which will create new applications beyond what has been explored.