Accordion shelters: A historical review of origami-like deployable shelters developed by the US military

Origami, the art of paper folding, is becoming increasingly recognized as a fruitful area of inspiration for engineering design and research. The state-of-the-art in origami engineering ranges across disciplines. At the structural scale, origami-inspired structures offer particular advantages for rapidly deployable shelters since (1) in the deployed form, the folded panels offer enhanced structural performance and (2) these folds enable the structure to be packaged small. In this respect, origami-inspired structures feature the deployability of soft wall (tent) structures, while providing the advantages of rigid wall systems such as thermal insulation. Though not identified as gaining inspiration from origami, the US military developed a series of accordion shelters in the mid-twentieth century which embody many of the qualities of origami-inspired shelters of interest today. This paper will review accordion concepts developed by the US military and the military evaluations of these systems with the aim of informing design today.