Guest Speaker: Prof. Zhong You
Professor of Engineering Science, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford
Prof. Zhong You is currently a Professor of Engineering Science at the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow of Magdalen College. Zhong obtained his BS from Shanghai Jiaotong University, and MS from Dalian University of Technology, and Ph.D. from Cambridge University.
Zhong’s research is concerned with the design and realization of novel deployable structures, a type of unconventional structures capable of large shape changes. He has published many ground-breaking research papers in prestigious journals including SCIENCE and PNAS. His work was selected for the Science Day Exhibition at Buckingham Palace in 2007, organized by the Royal Society. Zhong is one of the pioneers of research on origami, SCIENCE introduced Zhong’s research work in their “profile” section. In addition, he developed a flow diversion stent to treat cerebral aneurysms. Oxford Endovascular, a university spin-off company, was founded to commercialize this technology. Zhong also designed the bestselling foldable folding bed for children known as the stardust travel cot.
Abstract
Origami is the pure form of paper folding whereas kirigami involves not only folding but cutting as well. In general, kirigami is much less restrictive geometrically. As a result, it greatly expands the application scope of origami. For example, pop-up books are made possible because of kirigami. Hence, for engineers, it is worth considering kirigami when origami does not offer solutions.
The theme of this talk is on origami and kirigami inspired novel deployable structures. I shall first introduce a family of origami based reconfigurable deployable structures. The concept is subsequently utilized to build a robotic limb that can lift or hold weights. Secondly, I shall present the conversion of a well-known single motion origami structure to a dual motion reconfigurable one using kirigami. And finally, I shall discuss the role of kirigami in comparison with origami when the thickness of the sheet cannot be ignored. Examples where the use of kirigami leads to the most compact folding will be shown, which are simply impossible in origami. My talk will focus on the kinematic aspect of these structures, and all examples utilize rigorous mathematical modelling and analysis, and they are validated by physical models.
