High-Fidelity Simulations of Origami Structures: Applications to Retinal Implants

We consider physical realizations of origami crease patterns in thin linear-elastic films, where each crease has finite width and thickness. The folding process is simulated with the ABAQUS finite element code and, through a combination of implicit and quasi-static explicit analyses with carefully tuned simulation parameters, we are able to compute complex folded shapes. These techniques have been applied to the design of novel retinal implants with distributed microelectronics that are able to conform very accurately to retinas of different shapes.

About Sergio Pellegrino

Sergio Pellegrino is the Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Civil Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He is also a Senior Research Scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Professor Pellegrino's research focuses on lightweight structures and particularly on problems involving packaging, deployment, shape control and stability.

See website: http://pellegrino.caltech.edu/index.html