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BYU Team Defines 'Bloom' Origami That Folds Flat and Deploys Reliably

The peer-reviewed study formalizes the geometry to give engineers ready-to-use design tools.

Satellite and origami patterns.
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Overview

  • The paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society A defines a radially expansive, developable, flat-foldable pattern family with a geometry-based classification framework.
  • Electronic supplements provide a catalogue of designs and a program that generates Yoshimura bloom crease patterns for analysis and fabrication.
  • Paper and 3D-printed prototypes unfolded consistently in tests, addressing the risk that a single misfold can jeopardize a mission.
  • Proposed uses include telescopes, solar arrays and antennas for spacecraft, as well as a demonstrated life-size deployable cardboard dome for terrestrial structures.
  • Next steps target thickness accommodation, mechanical behavior under load, material scaling and integration toward flight-qualified and field-ready systems.