Reflections on the construction of furniture

In the first part, and causes the appearance of this material can be found in last publications.

And this will touch on concepts such as strength, stiffness and stability.

Concepts: strength, stiffness and stability are very important in the design of furniture. Next, I will discuss them in clear and simple features. On examples I try to show where it is found in practice. And I'll start with the concept of strength.

Take, for example, a strip of paper and try to break it by simply pulling your hands apart.

Now try to break the same paper strip on the other, brought closer together the fingers and pulling one hand to get another by himself.

See the difference?

So understanding why it happens allows us to do different things strong or very strong. And do it on their own. That is, increasing the predictability and control of the result. I'll try to explain clearly what it is. Imagine that all the material is made up of many small threads.

And when we try to break it the first way. We break all the strings simultaneously.

A second one after the other.

Think of the materials that we encounter every day. Wood, metal, glass, plastic. Each has its own characteristics: density, flexibility, softness, hardness, friability, elasticity and strength.

Furniture design often confronted with this concept when fastening. After all, board room furniture often going on the screws, not nails. Screw it every turn of his clinging to the material, and "threads" of its retention there are many, and in one nail.

Although in the case of nails... when the heel of hardboard nailed to the panels. Nail it on two nails and easy to tear and profits 10-20, have to try hard to tear.

As for the hardnessIt is mainly determined by three-dimensional structures.

Additionally important are the direction and force of impact on our design. Here you can see the example of the kitchen cabinets.

Take the lower cabinet. I'm in my practice has always put the stone on the bottom rack. Let me explain why. Weight countertops, shelves, that what is on the table tops and shelves is transmitted to the rack. They, in turn, transmit the weight to the bottom, and then on the feet and the floor. (Figure 1) 

In the case where the bottom is inserted between the uprights, the whole weight of the rack is transmitted via fasteners only a small part of the bottom. Obviously, for large load or sudden temporary increase of a load (someone jumped dropped something heavy) fasteners may break down. Of course, when several modules and they are strapped and under the whole worktop, the likelihood that break down the fixture is very low. (Figure 2)

Look at the top rack. All shelves, floor and roof are made loose. Load and all focused on the racks. But look where this load is directed. Each shelf and what lies on the shelves, pressing at your hardware. And all together through the rack is transferred to the sample of cabinets.

In general, when we design different things worth seeing what load and which side acts on our thing.

Proceed to the stability.

One day a customer came to me to order a regular clamshell cabinet under clothing. Two meters high, one meter wide and 50 cm deep. And all would do, but he asked for a door of chipboard and full size mirror them. I asked him what he would lay down the cabinet. He said to me, different boxes, shoes. I had to explain to him that at this size doors and a loading of the cabinet when opening the cupboard doors would fall as the weight of the door mirrors with more weight of the cabinet. The customer was a little surprised by this fact, but he agreed with my recommendation to fix the cabinet to the wall. (In this case, the cabinet would not fall).

Let us see from what depends on the stability of objects. Take for example a relatively homogeneous objects - a brick.

The figure on the left shows a brick that falls to the right, which will fall. I think it is understandable why.

In the first case, the bulk of the brick does not go beyond the plane on which the brick is based, in the second out. I did not just mention the uniformity of the object, as in the various structures of the main mass of objects can be in different parts. For example, in the closet which I told above, the mass is concentrated at the front of the cabinet and at the opening of the doors, she moved away from the plane, which supports the cabinet. And we can ensure the stability of the cabinet, putting his bottom any heavy objects (they have to be heavier doors).

Remember as a child's toy "roly-poly", it returns to its original position because the bulk of toys focused at the bottom and the bottom has a spherical shape.

Let's look at examples of stability-instability.

High stool or bar stool. If the footprint of this chair is the seat area, the chair will be easy to drop, if on the contrary, it will be stable.

Another example. Dresser with lots of drawers. It is no coincidence top boxes made smaller in size because if the top box is the same as the bottom, with vydviganii if it is sufficiently loaded, will outweigh the total weight of the chest.

As a result, to ensure the stability of structures necessary to ensure that the bulk is at the bottom, and the construction itself had a large enough footprint.

How do you understand all of the above reasoning is based on common sense. So do not hesitate to use their good judgment regarding the design. I wish you success.

Thank you for reading. I will be glad of your support in the form of a husky and a subscription to the channel. And look for other posts on the channel.

Alexander.

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