ABSTRACT
One of the most important aspect in design of large spatial motion structures is the identification of a suitable layout. In a chosen layout, the building blocks, often based on a known mechanism, are repeatedly used leading to a generic solution for a type of motion structure. Since most of the building blocks, though three dimensional, can be represented by two dimensional polygons schematically, a convenient method for the design of layouts is to utilise a mathematical tool known as tiling, also frequently referred to as tessellation. A tessellation method has been applied to the assemblies consisting of Bennett linkages, Myard linkages and threefold-symmetric Bricard linkages, respectively. Once a design is obtained attention has to be paid to the size and shape of the links and details of the joints for a desirable folding configuration may not be realised due to intersection of links.
