The objective of this research is to develop a design process for origami-adapted products and demonstrate it using aerospace mechanism examples. Origami-adapted design is a type of origami-based design. Origami-based design ranges from abstract to concrete applications of origami to design and includes: origami-inspired design, origami-adapted design, and origami-applied design. Origami-adapted design adapts origami fold patterns into products while preserving functionality. Some of the desirable attributes of origami that are sought after in design include: 1) reduced number of parts, 2) stowability, 3) deployability, 4) transportability, 5) manufacturability from a flat sheet of material, 6) ease of miniaturization, 7) a single manufacturing technique (folding) and 8) low material volume and mass. The proposed origami-adapted design process has four steps: define the problem, identify an origami solution, modify the fold pattern, and integrate. Intermediate steps apply tools to analyze and modify the origami fold pattern according to the design requirements. The first step defines whether origami is a viable solution by evaluating a set of starting criteria. Once it has been determined that origami is a viable solution, the design process guides the designer through a series of steps that modify the origami crease pattern until the final design is reached. The origami-adapted design process is applied to the design of three aerospace mechanism examples: an origami bellows, an expandable habitat, and a deployable parabolic antenna. The design process is followed throughout the design of these aerospace mechanisms. The origami bellows is designed and tested as a highly compressible origami bellows for harsh environments. It can be designed to endure 100,000+ cycles in fatigue and underwent testing for thermal cycling, abrasion, and radiation. The second example is a proof-of-concept expandable habitat for implementation as a module on the International Space Station. The design process aides in selecting an origami crease pattern and modifying it for thick, rigid materials. The last example is a deployable parabolic antenna. It is based on the flasher fold pattern with a wedge of the pattern removed to create curvature. It is experimentally verified to be approximately parabolic. The examples are shown to follow the origami-adapted design process and that the design process is flexible to accommodate a design's needs.

Origami has been investigated and demonstrated for engineering applications in recent years. Many techniques for accommodating the thickness of most engineering materials have been developed. In this work, tables comparing performance and manufacturing characteristics are presented. These tables can serve as useful design tools for engineers when selecting an appropriate thickness-accommodation technique for their application. The use of bent sheet metal for panels in thick-origami mechanisms shows promise as a panel design approach that mitigates several trade-offs between performance and manufacturing characteristics. A process is described and demonstrated that can be employed to use sheet metal in designs of origami-adapted mechanisms that utilize specific thickness-accommodation techniques. Data structures based on origami can be useful in the automation of thick-origami mechanism design. The use of such data structures is explained and shown in the context of a program that will automatically create the 3D CAD models and assembly of a thick-origami mechanism using the tapered panels technique based on the input origami crease pattern. Manufacturability in the design of origami-adapted mechanisms is discussed through presenting and examining three examples of origami-adapted mechanisms. As the manufacturability of origami-adapted products is addressed and improved, their robustness will also improve, thereby enabling greater use of origami-adapted design.

Origami can be a powerful source of design inspiration in the creation of reconfigurable systems with unparalleled performance. This thesis provides fundamental tools for designers to employ as origami-based designs are pursued in their respective fields of expertise. The first chapter introduces origami and makes connections between origami and engineering design through a survey of engineered applications and characterizing the relationship between origami and compliant mechanisms. The second chapter evaluates the creasing of non-paper sheet materials, such as plastics and metals, to facilitate origami-based compliant mechanism design. Although it is anticipated that most origami-based design will result from surrogate folds (indirect methods of replacing the crease), it is valuable to provide information that may help in more direct approaches for origami-based design in materials other than paper. Planar sheets of homogeneous material are considered as they maintain the principles fundamental to origami (flat initial state, low cost, readily available). The reduced stiffness along the axis of the crease is an enabling characteristic of origami. Hence a metric based on the deformation of the crease compared to the deformation of the panels enables engineering materials to be evaluated based on their ability to achieve the "hinge-like" behavior observed in folded paper. Advantages of both high and low values of this metric are given. Testing results (hinge indexes, residual angles, localized hinge behavior and cyclic creasing to failure) are presented for various metals and polymers. This methodology and subsequent findings are provided to enable origami-based design of compliant mechanisms. The third chapter proposes a basic terminology for origami-based design and presents areas of considerations for cases where the final engineering design is directly related to a crease pattern. This framework for navigating from paper art to engineered products begins once the crease pattern has been selected for a given application. The four areas of consideration are discussed: 1) rigid foldability 2) crease characterization 3) material properties and dimensions and 4) manufacturing. Two examples are concurrently presented to illustrate these considerations: a backpack shell and a shroud for an adjustable C-Arm x-ray device used in hospitals. The final chapter provides concluding remarks on origami-based design.