Toward future exploration programs on planetary surface, a study on flexibility of joint structure of space suit has been carried out with the aid of an origami technology. Since space suits are pressurized inside, it is necessary to design a pneumatic fabric tube which is able to bend easily. A new joint structure, Membrane-Beam Folding Structure (MBFS), is proposed in the present work to give flexibility to pneumatic tubes. MBFS represents a fabric tube with metal beams attached according to the Yoshimura folding pattern. In order to investigate structural characteristics of MBFS, axial elongation and bending tests are carried out for examining effects of pressurization and external bending moment, respectively. The axial elongation test shows spring-like behavior of MBFS that is explained by restoring force which metal beams produce. The results of bending test show that large deformation of MBFS starts even by initial loading although a 15 kPa-pressurized fabric tube requires 50 N to start large bending deformation. It is confirmed that prestress induced by internal pressure has been mostly counterbalanced with equivalent restoring force. The value of restoring force necessary for starting an immediate bending has been estimated by a numerical analysis based on applied Euler-Bernoulli beam theory.

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