Applications of Folding Flat Sheets of Materials into 3-D Intricate Engineering Designs

Folding of flat sheets of material into intricate three-dimensional structures provides a new technology for production of cores and sandwich structures of high strength/weight and/or strength/volume ratios. Geometric patterns are generated by transforming flat sheets of materials (traditional or composite) by imposing a permanent fold at specific edges of tessellated sheets. This might result in new structures with improved mechanical properties and light weight. They are also developed at a cost significantly less that any existing manufacturing process. Folding technology for sheet material is unique and one of the most efficient shape and structural forming processes. Other production methods such as stretch-drawing, forging, pressing, casting and fabrication may appear to produce three-dimensional patterns that are cosmetically similar but the mechanical properties of the resultant patterns are significantly different. This is particularly so in the case of folding thin sheet materials where variations in sheet thickness and/or mechanical properties are unacceptable. In this paper we present new approaches for sheet folding and investigate the use of sheet folding theory and technology in generating 3-D intricate engineering designs. We describe the theory of generating different patterns by folding flat sheets of materials. We investigate the effect of the parameters of the pattern in terms of its material type and geometry on its performance measures of the folded patterns. We then describe the manufacturing process that transforms a flat sheet of material into the desired pattern. The advantages and limitation of the process are discussed in details.