The Origami Forum

Hello all and I am new to this site. I hope I can contribute as many of you have also. As I stated, I am new to this forum and only recently did I gain an appreciation for Origami and what it can do for people and others who are new to this art form. As stated by many brilliant mathematicians, math is a tool to understand the world around us and to see answers unknown to us, a in a sense our 6th sense found within Origami. A
couple days ago, I was inspired by an idea, maybe already discussed here, but I was wondering, is there a way to make a folded design, for instance am origami bed to be strong enough to hold 10x its weight? What I am asking is there a chemical which can be applied in a single or layered procedure to make paper as strong as wood and make it stable for a long time? In conclusion, I am searching and wondering if anybody can point me in the right directions to someone or some site where I can get more info concerning my idea. Thank you all for reading and responding.

This is a very interesting idea. It would be very cool to fold a chair that you can actually sit on. I'm not sure if you could make paper that strong but I am not a chemist.
I once saw a origami piece on flck, some sort of box or testellation that could hold a bowlingball. But maybe you could look at it the other way around? Is there a something that is very strong but still foldable?

I know you can heat up sheets of plexiglass and that fold them. But you can't have any "layers" I think. Thin sheets of metal could also be folded when heated, when it cools you would have a strong piece. It would be cool if someone can find an example.

I once saw a crocheted chair that you could sit in. If I can find the chemical they used as a hardener, I'll tell you.
Its on display at the High Museum in Atlanta, GA by the way, if you want to look yourself for the chemical. I'm thinking some sort of epoxy.

I suggest you search for information about composite materials, such as carbon fiber, fiberglass, Kevlar panels. Also read about corrugations. A simple paper cylinder on end can easily support 10 times the weight of the paper in the axial direction, but will easily buckle. Waterbomb-type tessellations can be quite strong in compression, but are not very rigid in terms of supporting a weight across a span. Classic beams are rigid depending on their thickness and the materials they are made from. Foamcore boards would be one example, and consist of a sandwich of paper around a Styrofoam core. The paper is bonded by a glue. The Styrofoam core is not very rigid but resists shear forces. Paper is reasonable good in terms of stretch-resistance (being made out of fibers). By bonding paper to the Styrofoam, you get a panel that is more rigid than the materials composing it. In fact, rigidity is related to the cube of the panel thickness as long as the core material doesn't come apart in shear, and the "skin" doesn't stretch or tear.

Corrugated panels work the same way -- so corrugated boxes consist of a core (e.g. wavy paper) glued to a skin.

However, the forces acting on a chair are complex, and so rigidity of a sheet is only one aspect.

Epoxy resin, polyester and vinylester resins, are often used in composites both because they are strong adhesives (bonding the skin to the core) and tend to enhance the stretch-resistance of the skin material.

Carbon fiber, aramide (e.g. Kevlar), fiberglass, are good at resisting stretch, which is why they make good skin materials (airplane wings, surf-boards). Orientation of the fibers is very important in determining the final characteristics, as is the thickness and core material. A chair seat needs to be able to transfer forces to other members (e.g. table legs) and the mechanics of these forces are different from the beam, and so the amazing effect of thickness in a beam will not carry over to strength of a table leg, or buckling, shearing, twisting forces. Because of this, I would not rely on the an origami model to scale up to full size.

There are plenty of sources on foldable furniture made of cardboard.

If you search around, you'll find information about using polyester resin for origami models, and there is no reason why epoxy resins or polyurethane couldn't accomplish the same thing. For example, a common way of making prosthetics and splints involve using carbon fiber cloth pre-impregnated with epoxy resin, and then cured in an oven after it has been formed. Epoxy and other resins can be formulated to be cured using ultraviolet light. The are resins that are used in fly-tying and in applying nail polish that are UV curable.

Sizing in paper can improve its rigidity, and length and strength of fibers is an important factor. Folding/creasing causes fiber separation and possibly breakage, and at the very least disrupts the forces that cause a sheet to form. Humidity may play a role.

Lots of engineering programs run challenges like this (e.g. building bridges, dropping eggs from a height) so you probably can satisfy your curiosity on this pretty easily. I just wouldn't put a human in your creation without serious input from a qualified engineer!

I saw that Robert Lang cast a few of his models in bronze. It looks really good, but aren't actually origami. You could use some sort of epoxy, but that wouldn't be origami either. You could find some stuff with cylinders. Triangles also provide support, but stay away from squares, they provide no support. Hers the link for the metal casting stuff:
http://www.langorigami.com/art/metal-sculpture.php

A little out of left field:
1. In the book, "Why Buildings Stay Up (1990) by Salvadori, he has a paper folded barrel structure, which has a significant strength to weight ratio. That structure might serve as the base for your bed.
2. For example, See: http://www.instructables.com/id/Paper-F ... Structure/
3. You might apply MethyCellulose to strengthen the paper and resulting model.

It will take a bit more architectural and origami creativity to synthesize these facts into a concrete model of your idea, but I believe it is doable.