Caravan Awnings: a Geometrical Problem

Two questions regardingthe design of caravan awnings were posed by a company.The company wishes to produce awnings with a pretty appearance. When an awning is attached to a caravan, some wrinkles could appear. We developed some methods to avoid the wrinkles. The problem is restricted to awnings which are made from one piece of cloth

The shape and mechanics of curved fold origami structures

We develop recursion equations to describe the three-dimensional shape of a sheet upon which a series of concentric curved folds have been inscribed. In the case of no stretching outside the fold, the three-dimensional shape of a single fold prescribes the shape of the entire origami structure. To better explore these structures, we derive continuum equations, valid in the limit of vanishing spacing between folds, to describe the smooth surface intersecting all the mountain folds. We find that this surface has negative Gaussian curvature with magnitude equal to the square of the fold's torsion. A series of open folds with constant fold angle generate a helicoid

Beyond developable: computational design and fabrication with auxetic materials

We present a computational method for interactive 3D design and rationalization of surfaces via auxetic materials, i.e., flat flexible material that can stretch uniformly up to a certain extent. A key motivation for studying such material is that one can approximate doubly-curved surfaces (such as the sphere) using only flat pieces, making it attractive for fabrication. We physically realize surfaces by introducing cuts into approximately inextensible material such as sheet metal, plastic, or leather. The cutting pattern is modeled as a regular triangular linkage that yields hexagonal openings of spatially-varying radius when stretched. In the same way that isometry is fundamental to modeling developable surfaces, we leverage conformal geometry to understand auxetic design. In particular, we compute a global conformal map with bounded scale factor to initialize an otherwise intractable non-linear optimization. We demonstrate that this global approach can handle non-trivial topology and non-local dependencies inherent in auxetic material. Design studies and physical prototypes are used to illustrate a wide range of possible applications