"set up a pattern" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it when you want to indicate that something is being established or put into a repeating cycle. For example, "The teacher set up a pattern for students to practice their multiplication facts every day."
For its finale, it set up a pattern of unhurried Minimalist loops that continued as the band left the stage.
This motion can set up a pattern of convection wherein heat and moisture are transported upward and cooler and drier air is transported downward.
The alarm clock module is generally excellent — you can, for example, set up a pattern of alarms like 7 30 a.m. on Monday and Wednesday, 7 45 the other weekdays.
Professor Burger, who also teaches a course in comedy writing, also noted the "rule of three" in structuring jokes: two instances of something similar to set up a pattern, followed by a subversive surprise ("For God, for country and for Yale," for instance).
Revealing he had never been put in that position, the former Porto boss said: "If that happens, we will have to look at the situation and we will have to set up a pattern of coherence in the actions that we do".
Google was attempting to set up a pattern of Microsoft teaming up with other Google rivals to damage them.
Stravinsky sets up a pattern only to shatter it.
When Clinton started speaking, tweeters immediately focussed their attention on her opponent, setting up a pattern of lopsided intrigue for the night.
Either way, the same tone persists throughout "Imperial Bedrooms," as the book develops genre aspirations and sets up a pattern of exaggerated noir menace that is more talk than action.
The exceptions to music's repetitive rule only prove it by default: Joseph Haydn's music so often works by setting up a pattern of predictability before breaking it with an unexpected musical punchline; but he's dependent on our existing love of repetitive structures for his tricks to work.
Not long after Rouhani's election, negotiations got a huge shot in the arm when a new round of talks resulted in a Joint Action Plan in November 2013, setting up a pattern of good-faith nuclear program reductions in Iran in exchange for sanctions relief from the West.
