Development of a Prototype Deployable Bridge Based on Origami Skill

In recent years, the world has seen many natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis. In particular, Japan experienced a very bad flood that damaged many bridges in Sayo, Shiso and Mimasaka along several branched rivers of the Chigusa and Ibo rivers in 2009. We need to develop a new rescue structure to survive such disasters. We have to consider how to recover a damaged structure or how to rebuild a new type of rescue system as soon as possible after a disaster occurs because time is of the essence when trying to save lives. To this end, we have created an optimum deployable bridge based on an origami folding structure determined by computer analysis. Such computer analysis based on origami is a skill that is useful for making new designs for light structures or achieving high stiffness in mechanics. We wish to use this computing skill to help people recover from natural disasters. To design a new emergency bridge called MobilebridgeTM we have originally created an optimization truss by computing mechanics. We realize that it is necessary to develop this Mobilebridge as soon as possible to be ready for the next natural disaster.