A University of Arkansas researcher's quest to create stronger and lighter structures using kirigami-based design

2024-05-08T12:28:00-04:00

By making a series of cuts and folds in a sheet of paper, Baker found she could produce two planes connected by a complex set of thin strips. Without the need for any adhesive like glue or tape, this pattern created a surface that was thick but lightweight. Baker named her creation Spin-Valence. Structural tests later showed that an individual tile made this way, and rendered in steel, can bear more than a thousand times its own weight.

MIT Technology Review highlights the digital fabrication work of Emily Baker, an architect and assistant professor at the University of Arkansas' Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. Baker began her research into lightweight and sturdy Spin-Valence structures as an architecture graduate student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

A concept for a shade structure in rural Arkansas following this design principle by Baker and collaborators Vincent Edwards, Edmund Harriss, Isabel Moreira de Oliveira, Eduardo Sosa, and Reilly Dickens-Hoffman also recently won the 2024 Forge Prize for innovation in steel architecture.

MIT researchers create strong, ultra-light architected materials using kirigami techniques

2023-08-24T14:02:00-04:00

Researchers at MIT have developed a lightweight architected material inspired by the cellular structures found in natural materials such as honeycombs and bones. Produced with techniques borrowed from the Japanese kirigami paper-cutting technique, the strong metal lattices are lighter than cork while also holding customizable mechanical properties.

Image courtesy of the researchers via MIT

Using kirigami techniques, the MIT team led by Professor Neil Gershenfeld of the Center for Bits and Atoms has produced plate lattice structures on a larger scale than was previously possible. The structures are described as "steel cork" by Gershenfeld due to their lightweight nature combined with high strength and stiffness.

“To make things like cars and airplanes, a huge investment goes into tooling. This manufacturing process is without tooling, like 3D printing. But unlike 3D printing, our process can set the limit for record material properties,” Gershenfeld said in a statement.

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A University of Arkansas researcher's quest to create stronger and lighter structures using kirigami-based design

MIT researchers create strong, ultra-light architected materials using kirigami techniques