Assembled Additive Manufacturing – A Hybrid Fabrication Process Inspired by Origami Design

Inspired by the recent developments on origami structures, we investigated a fast AM process for fabricating prototype models of thin-shell shapes. By combining the origami design and the additive manufacturing technology, a new fabrication process named Assembled Additive Manufacturing (AAM) is developed. In the process, a digital model is first analyzed to determine geometries that are fabricated by the layer-based and origami-based approaches. The thin shell model for the origami-based approach is then unfolded into a foldable 2D sheet. After the fabrication and folding of the 2D sheet, a postprocessing process is developed before the final prototype is fabricated using the layer-based fabrication process. Algorithms of analyzing and unfolding polygonal model and the details of the process are introduced in the paper; design parameters, mechanics analysis and test cases are also discussed.Mechanical Engineerin