Northwestern Engineering researchers applied the Japanese art style for a new engineering technique involving paper-folding practices. They’re inspired by the technique called Kirigami Art. The engineers created a sophisticated 3D printing alternative using a thin layer of material and software.
Kirigami is derived from two Japanese words Kiru (to cut) and Kami (paper). It’s a traditional art for precisely cutting and transforming a piece of paper into a 3D object. It helps to select exact geometric cuts and they used these ideas to create 3D printing options.
The term Kirigami picked pace through a 1962 book by Florence Temko. The book entitled “Kirigami, the Creative Art of Papercutting” and was successful in the United States. Its popularity was so big that Kirigami was accepted as a Western name for paper cutting art.
The practicality of Kirigami
Kirigami can be applied in a range of areas. Since it can be applied at a macroscale level, there are many types of research to use in various applications. There are tools to examine services and companies. Solutions like https://www.saasgenius.com/ can compare and recommend SaaS solutions with reviews and personal matches.
McCormick School of Engineering was able to apply design concepts that use the Kirigami concept in nanostructures. They combine Nanomanufacturing and computational modeling for using it in a practical application.
The Kirigami cuts would be in use for placing semiconductor on ultrathin films to create 2D structures. From this, well-defined 3D structures created with structural instabilities. Normally there would be a limit to shape numbers using Kirigami but they used film bending and twisting in an asymmetric and asymmetric configuration.
Microscale structures can create unusual 3D shapes using film thickness of a few tens of nanometers. Kirigami-based tweezers have the ability to be engineered precisely with grabbing force. The engineers of McCormick School of Engineering use a design to predict structural behavior with computer simulations.
They explored large Kirigami design spaces for a number of functionalities. There was a 2015 study that shows it can be used for pop-up fabrication models. The new research by McCormick used this research to further apply Kirigami designs of the nanostructure.
The team also stated that these new 3D structures can be used for a variety of applications. For example, it can be used for microscale grippers or even spatial light modulators for flow control in airplane wings. These 3D materials have the ability to be blended and twisted.
Kirigami for the future
They are also hoping to explore more of Kirigami designs in the future. Kirigami techniques could help in architecture, aerospace, and environmental engineering, according to the McCormick School of Engineering researchers.
Also Read: 5 Best Tips For Online Privacy
There are several methods and workflows for generating 2D Kirigami patterns from 3D surfaces. Reciprocal feedback loop methods like computational designs along with dynamic simulation and physical prototyping.
It’s possible to incorporate material properties in the folding process so that active Kirigami models from DNA to human scale are developed. Kirigami designs can be developed for a wide range of scales and applications. Kirigami cuts would help to determine 3D shapes to cause the material to fracture.
