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Department of Engineering |
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From pogos to pencils - deployable structures explained
2 April 2004
Sergio Pellegrino's deployable structures have hit the headlines again - this time in American
Scientist (March-April issue, 2004). In a five-page article, the author, Henry Petroski not only explains the
principles of deployable structures with considerable clarity, but also describes his visit to the Deployable
Structures Laboratory in Cambridge last summer, where he was hosted, to his obvious delight by Professor
Chris Calladine.
Petroski's descriptions of the wonders he found, from models with the 'beauty of form and operation of a
flowering plant' to 'skeleton-like assemblages of wires in tension and struts in compression', makes for
excellent reading, whilst his description of the ubiquitous use of deployable structures in our everyday
lives from retractable clothes lines to reclining chairs shows how indebted we are to this engineering
discipline. In particular, the work of Dr Keith Seffen features prominently: he uses hinges cut from a
retractable steel tape measure to form a mechanism that can be used to deploy panels remotely in space. This
research is used to great effect in the article to explain what deployable structures are, and how they
work.
'Deployable Structures' by Henry Petroski, American Scientist, March-April, 2004, Volume 92,
p122-126.
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