Publication
Bamboo deployable structures take advantage of the high elasticity of the naturally grown material to achieve substantial shape change beyond mechanical deployment. The deployability maximizes prefabrication while maintaining transportation compactness. The BamX! Pavilion investigates the deployability of cylindrical bamboo components and the embedded locking mechanism through geometry. The interlocking weaving pattern stiffens the cylinders by connecting selective points between the deployed cylindrical components, forming a static load-bearing structure. The inconsistency of the mechanical properties of raw bamboo, together with the complexity of the system required an integrative structural design approach. The method includes material characterization, structure system conceptualization, and multi-scale structural analysis. Calibrations are performed both on the component level and the material level. Physical testing on single cylinders facilitates a simplification on the initial form-finding FE into a strut-represented model for rapid iterations on global topology. Once the global topology optimization is accomplished, the characterized mechanical properties from material tests allow for a more sophisticated simulation of the final woven geometry. This paper evaluates the non-standard material and the required multi-scale sampling and analysis workflow towards designing and fabricating a bamboo woven deployable structure: the BamX! Pavilion.