Development of Manufacturing Method for Truss Core Panel Based on Origami-Forming

Although honeycomb panel is widely used in various stages, its adhesive for gluing honeycomb core and plate may burn by fire, leading to the requirement of another lightweight and high stiffness panel. Recently, an Origami structure called Truss Core Panel (TCP) is known as a lightweight structure that has equivalent bending stiffness as honeycomb panel, and safer in fire. However, some difficulties are found in forming TCP in general. In this study, a new forming process of TCP based on origami-forming is developed. In particular, the TCP is partitioned into several parts that are flat unfoldable into 2D crease patterns. After that, blanks of material are cut as the shapes of those crease pattern, and be formed by a robot system to get the desired 3D shape. Firstly, partition method by dividing TCP into pyramid cores and sheet plate is presented, suggesting an ability to manufacture a wider range of structure than before. Tools arrangement of robot device and a countermeasure for springback are considered. Next, by applying Origami unfolding technique, an improvement of partition method is proposed: dividing TCP into cores rows, and then searching for a Origami crease pattern in order to fold that cores row. The cutting method of every core is modified for reducing the number of facets, making the problem simpler. Finally, an Origami crease pattern based on this new cutting method is presented, producing cores row with any number of cores.