Patent for Origami-Inspired Morphing Wing Design
MIE Professor Moneesh Upmanyu was awarded a patent for “Variable morphing wing using surface actuated origami folds.”
Abstract Source: USPTO
Morphable active corrugate structure and aeronautical wings are provided herein including one or more skins or envelopes, and a sheet having independently actuable hinge domains attached to the one or more skins or envelopes and independently actuable facet domains, each of the hinge domains and facet domains configured with through-thickness differential expansion coefficients, wherein differential strains in at least one of the hinge domains or the facet domains cause the sheet to expand or contract along a flexible axis of the sheet, wherein the sheet is attached to the upper and lower skins at respective upper and lower of the hinge domains.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Erin Kayata. Main photo: A Northeastern professor and PhD student decided to apply origami folds to create a new model for morphing wings. Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
Origami meets aerospace in Northeastern design for morphing wings
Inspiration for innovation can come from anywhere—even origami.
Moneesh Upmanyu, a Northeastern University professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, and Raman Vaidya, one of his students who graduated from the university with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, were recently awarded a patent for a prototype for a structure with morphing wings inspired by the folds of origami that can change shape.
“Morphing wings can change shape on the fly,” Upmanyu said. “If you look at birds, their wings can adapt to many different shapes. Morphing wings, from that point of view, are adaptable. The idea is to have more adaptability to engineer more energy efficiency and to have flights respond to current weather conditions.”
Morphing wings are currently used in a limited capacity, primarily in experimental aircraft, military applications, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
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Moneesh Upmanyu and Raman Vaidya received a patent for these models of morphing wings. Courtesy Renderings
The road to invention began three to four years ago, Upmanyu said, when he became interested in how origami folding could be used in mechanical engineering.
This was a concept Vaidya had also encountered during his previous studies, having found that origami is used to inform soft robotics and aerospace structures. The two wanted to find applications for these origami-like folds in mechanical engineering and found that a morphing wing could be one area of benefit.
“Origami structures have been around for a long, long time and we just explored the engineering part of it,” Vaidya added. “They have a lot of applications in a lot of different fields. We wanted to utilize some of the surface areas that weren’t being utilized for actuation beforehand, so one of the applications that we thought of was the morphing wing.”
Read full story at Northeastern Global News
Related Story: Recent PhD Graduate Raman Vaidya Co-Patents Origami-Inspired Morphing Wings