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Elasticity modulus of cabinet furniture joints

Article  in  Materials and Design · April 2014

DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2014.03.066

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 Materials and Design 60 (2014) 260–266

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Technical Report

Elasticity modulus of cabinet furniture joints

Jerzy Smardzewski a,⇑, Wojciech Lewandowski a, Hasan Özgür Imirzi
_ b

a
Poznan University of Life Sciences, Faculty of Wood Technology, Department of Furniture Design, Wojska Polskiego 38/42, 60-637 Poznan, Poland
b
Gazi University, Faculty of Technology, Department of Wood Product Industry Engineering, 06500 Teknikokullar/Besevler/Ankara, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Designing of furniture stiffness with the assistance of computer aided engineering (CAE) requires deter-
Received 10 February 2014 mination of joint stiffness coefficients or realistic modelling of elastic bodies which remain in contact
Accepted 28 March 2014 with one another. The objective of this study was to determine elasticity moduli of furniture L-type joints,
Available online 8 April 2014
numerical calculation of furniture stiffness with joints which were assigned elasticity moduli as well as
verification of the results of these calculations employing, for this purpose, experimental investigations.
The correctness of the elaborated model of joint elasticity modulus was verified positively by empirical
studies. The developed model makes it possible to conduct an objective comparison of joint stiffness and,
on this basis, to select the most advantageous solutions. The application of joint elasticity moduli simpli-
fies numerical analysis of cabinet furniture construction.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction realistic modelling of elastic bodies which remain in contact with

Furniture strength assessment should be initiated at the stage of
their design process. Conformity certification of a given piece of
furniture prototype always entails the need to bear considerably
higher costs of eliminating the identified defects and mistakes
[1–3]. One of the major quality evaluation criteria of cabinet furni-
ture is their stiffness [4–9]. This stiffness depends, primarily, on the
stiffness of the applied joints [4–25]. Studies on analytical models
of cabinet furniture stiffness have been conducted since 1957
[4–8,26]. The results of those experiments revealed that for physi-
cal models connected with the assistance of various couplings,
furniture deflections were lower in comparison with the calculated
values. The main reason of the discrepancies was disregarding the
influence of furniture joint stiffness on the rigidity of the entire con-
struction. Therefore, many researchers focused their attention on
the issue of stiffness and strength of furniture joints and their
impact on the rigidity of the entire construction [10,11,21–24,26–
38]. The main assessment criterion of joint strength was the value
of the breaking force or bending moment. On the other hand, stiff-
ness was evaluated on the basis of the deflection value along the
direction of load application or on the basis of the value change of
the angle between the arms of the joint. These results, albeit very
important from the cognitive point of view, fail to make easier work
for designing offices of furniture factories which employ the CAE
(computer aided engineering) tool for rapid prototyping. Numerical
modelling requires determination of joint stiffness coefficients or
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +48 61 848 74 75; fax: +48 61 848 74 74.
E-mail address: jsmardzewski@up.poznan.pl (J. Smardzewski).
one another [39–43]. This kind of modelling is very accurate but
also labour-consuming and impractical from the point of view of
application by designing offices. For this reason, an attempt was
made to elaborate a method of simplified modelling of furniture
joint stiffness for the needs of numerical calculations [44]. In the
proposed method, joint stiffness was expressed by means of a mod-
ulus of elasticity in the form of a load and deflection function.
The main goal of this study was determination of elasticity
moduli of furniture L-type joints, numerical calculation of furniture
stiffness with joints which were assigned elasticity moduli as well
as verification of the results of these calculations employing for
this purpose experimental investigations.
2. Methods and materials
2.1. Kinds of L-type joints
For experiments, standard connectors were selected ensuring
possibilities of self-assembly by the user (Fig. 1). These were beech
dowels Ø 8  35 mm (D), ‘‘konfirmat’’ screws Ø 7  50 mm (C),
eccentric couplings with threaded mandrels Ø 5 mm (E1) and
eccentric couplings with expanding mandrels Ø 8 mm (E2). Fig. 1
also gives characteristics of the provided holes. Shapes and dimen-
sions of joints are presented in Fig. 2 and described in Table 1. Three
kinds of 500 mm long (L) and two kinds of 150 mm long (S) joints
were employed. The LCD joint consisted of two ‘‘konfirmat’’ type
screws and two dowels without the use of glue. The LE1D joint
comprised two eccentric couplings with threaded mandrels and
two dowels without the use of glue, while the LE2D joints was made

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2014.03.066
0261-3069/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Smardzewski et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 260–266 261

Fig. 1. Kinds of the applied joints: D – beech dowel; C – ‘‘konfirmat’’ screw; E1 – eccentric coupling with threaded mandrel; E2 – eccentric coupling with expanding mandrel.

Table 1
Designations of the applied joints.

Designation Length of Type of joint (see Fig. 2)

joint (mm)
A B
LCD L = 500 C = konfirmat D = dowel
LE1D E1 = eccentric coupling with
threaded mandrel
LE2D E2 = eccentric coupling with
expanding mandrel
SE1 S = 150 E1 = eccentric coupling with –
threaded mandrel
SE1D D = dowel

Fig. 2. Arrangement of connectors. Joint: (a) long L, (b) short S.
up of 2 eccentric couplings with expanding mandrels and two dow-
els without the use of glue. The SE1 joints contained two eccentric
couplings with threaded mandrels without dowels, whereas the
SE1D joints, additionally, contained two dowels without glue. Each
joint was prepared in 10 replications, so the total number of samples
was 50.
Joint arms were made of laminated chip board 16 mm thick.
Prior to making experimental joints, the board was seasoned in
the laboratory facility where the air relative humidity was kept
at 65 ± 5% and the temperature at 21 ± 1 °C until the board reached
constant mass. Additionally, it was decided to ascertain physic-
mechanical properties of 2.5 mm thick HDF type boards lacquered
on one side. The application of HDF boards was connected with the
construction of the selected piece of furniture for which numerical
calculations were carried out later on in the experiment. Board lin-
ear elasticity modulus and density were carried out in accordance
with the appropriate standards [45,46] taking into consideration
both the longer || and shorter > axis of the examined material
(Table 2). The total of 90 samples, i.e. 15 samples for each treat-
ment, was employed.
262 J. Smardzewski et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 260–266

Table 2 model, a = 100 mm designates the length of arms of the joint,

Physico-mechanical properties of furniture boards. a2 = 16 mm thickness of the board, a1 = a–a2, x1, x2 – ranges of inte-
Designation Unit Kind of board gration, E – elasticity modulus of the laminated chip board, Es –
Chip board PB High-density fibre board HDF elasticity modulus of the joint and P cos a – load perpendicular
to the arm.
E|| MPa 3673 4064
SD 165 250
The constitutive equation describing the deflection of the DP
E> 3537 4142 joint long the action of the P force assumes the following form:
SD 123 421 Z a1 Z a¼a1 þa2 
Eaverage 3605 4103 P cos2 a 2 P cos2 a 2
DP ¼ 2 x1 dx1 þ x2 dx2 ; ð2Þ
r kg/m3 638 870 0 EJ a1 Es J
SD 6 13
3 3
SD – standard deviation. J ¼ Ld =12 lub J ¼ Sd =12; ð3Þ
where L and S – length of the joint equalling 500 and 150 mm,
respectively; d – thickness of chipboard 16 mm. Solving this equa-
Stiffness characteristics of the experimental joints were deter-
tion, the following was obtained:
mined in a compression test using for this purpose Zwick 1445 uni-  
versal testing machine (Fig. 3). During the test, force P was 2P cos2 aa31 2P cos2 aða3  a31 Þ
DP ¼ 2 þ ½mm: ð4Þ
recorded with 0.01 N accuracy as well as DP deflection along the 3EJ 3Es J
direction of force P application with 0.01 mm accuracy. The load
Therefore, the elasticity modulus of the joint assumes the fol-
application was discontinued when the sample was destroyed for
lowing form:
Pmax or when the load decreased. On the basis of the obtained val-
ues, the stiffness of the examined joint was calculated as: 2PE cos2 aða3  a31 Þ
Es ¼ ½MPa: ð5Þ
3EJDP  2P cos2 aa31
0:4Pmax
Kj ¼ ; ½N=mm ð1Þ
DP0:4 Using Eq. (5), Es was calculated for each of the employed joints
and then, the obtained results were used for numerical calculations
where DP0.4 represents sample deflection corresponding to the load of the body of the examined piece of furniture.
equalling 0.4 Pmax.
2.3. Verification method of the model of joint stiffness
2.2. Model of the joint elasticity modulus
The correctness of the applied stiffness model of type L joints
In order to determine the elasticity modulus of joints, the was verified by means of laboratory investigations and numerical
authors employed the calculation model presented in Fig. 3. In this calculations. For laboratory experiments, a piece of cabinet furni-
ture was prepared manufactured from the same chipboard as the
one used in experimental joints (Fig. 4a and b). The mass of the
piece of furniture amounted to G = 103.2 kg. Elements from the
chipboard were assembled using LE1D, LCD and SE1 couplings
(Fig. 4a). The back was manufactured from a 2.5 mm thick HDF
board. It was fastened to the side walls by means of eight plastic
triangles and 3.5  20 mm screws as well as to horizontal parti-
tions using eight 3  16 screws (Figs. 4c and 5). All connectors
were distributed symmetrically and at equal distances.
The construction was loaded with a concentrated force Qi at the
right, front upper peak (Fig. 4a and b). The initial value of the load
amounted to 50 N and it was increased by every 50 N until the con-
struction was destroyed. Each load value was applied for 30 s mea-
suring displacements DQi along the direction of the action of force
Qi with 0.1 mm accuracy. The stiffness of the experimental piece of
furniture was ascertained on the basis of the recorded values as the
following quotient:
Qi
K¼  ½N=mm ð6Þ
DQ i
On the basis of the results of laboratory experiments, the qual-
ity of the model of elasticity moduli of the examined joints was
verified. For this purpose, a numerical model of the assessed piece
of furniture was elaborated and calculations of its stiffness with
the assistance of the finite elements method were carried out.
The developed model represented realistically the physical con-
struction and comprised 528864 brick-type finite elements
(Fig. 6). Chipboard elements (Fig. 6a) were assigned linear elastic-
ity modulus E = 3605 MPa, whereas the back wall – E = 4103 MPa.
In the case of both materials, the applied Poisson coefficient was
n = 0. 3. The surface of the back wall was moved away from the sur-
faces of the remaining elements so that it did not remain in contact
Fig. 3. Method of sample loading. with them. It was connected permanently with the bottom of the
 J. Smardzewski et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 260–266 263

Fig. 4. Construction and method of loading of the experimental piece of furniture: (a) places where the joints occurred; (b) physical model; and (c) method of fastening of the
back wall.

Fig. 5. Screws used to fasten the back wall: (a) Ø 3.5  20 and (b) Ø 3  16 mm.

key on side walls as well as with front surfaces of modelled screws

(Fig. 6b). Screws were assigned a linear elasticity modulus of
E = 200000 MPa (n = 0.3). Corner joints were represented as rectan-
gular blocks having d  d  L or d  d  S dimensions and assign-
ing them elasticity corresponding to values of the calculated
elasticity moduli Es. Calculations were carried out for several joint
configurations. The basic configuration consisted of a construction
with joints as in the laboratory model, i.e. with LE1D + LCD + SE1
joints (Fig. 4a). In addition, also the following configurations were
employed: LE1D + LCD + SE1D; LE2D + LCD + SE1; LE2D + LCD +
SE1D (Fig. 4a). These configurations constituted an attempt at eval-
uating furniture stiffness only on the basis of numerical calcula-
tions. All calculations were performed with the assistance of the
Autodesk Simulation Multiphysics 2013 software.

3. Results and discussion

Fig. 6. Numerical model of the experimental piece of furniture: (a) designation of
3.1. Stiffness of joints the joint and screw and (b) designation of the back wall.

Fig. 7 illustrates stiffness of joints in the form of dependences

between the load and deflection, whereas Table 3 presents load val-
ues, deflections corresponding them, joint stiffness coefficients Kj as
well as elasticity moduli Es. It is evident from Fig. 7 that LCD joints
were characterised by high load-carrying ability and considerable
deflections. In comparison with the carrying capacities of LE1D,
LE2D, SE1 and SE1D joints, it was, respectively, by 97.6%, 87.1%,
171.4% and 102.2% higher. However, this does not mean that the
LCD joints were characterised by an equally high stiffness because
stiffness of a joint depends on the curve slope in relation to the hor-
izontal axis, i.e. coefficient Kj [9,15,27,28,43]. It is clear from Table 3
that for elastic deflections of (0.4 Pmax), joints of L = 500 mm length
exhibited lower stiffness than joints of S = 150 mm. This was con-
nected with the fact that a similar number of connectors were used
on a three times shorter arms. The stiffness coefficient Kj for LCD
joints amounted to 76.6 N/mm. It was by 23.5% higher in compari-
son with the stiffness coefficient for LE1D joints and by 90.0% higher
than the stiffness coefficient for LE2D joints. In the case of short SE1
and SE2 joints, the Kj coefficient was 98.7 N/mm and 104.2 N/mm,
respectively corresponding to, respectively, 128.8% and 136.0% of
the reference LCD joint stiffness. From the point of view of quality,
264 J. Smardzewski et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 260–266

shape and proportions of this deformation correspond to a torsional

deformation of a physical model (Fig. 4b). It results from torsional
deformations of individual component elements of the piece of fur-
niture which, to a considerable extent, depends on the stiffness of
the applied joints [4–9,15]. Furniture stiffness in relation to the con-
figuration of the applied joints is presented in Fig. 9. The reference
model is the laboratory piece of furniture with LE1D + LCD + SE1
joints (Fig. 4a). For this configuration, at the load of 100 N, the DQi
dependence has a progressive, non-linear character. On the other
hand, the results of numerical calculations revealed that the identi-
cal stiffness was achieved for furniture with joints having
LE1D + LCD + SE1 and LE1D + LCD + SE1D configurations. A similar
pattern was observed in the case of calculations for constructions
Fig. 7. Stiffness of joints.
with joints having LE2D + LCD + SE1 and LE2D + LCD + SE1D config-
urations (Fig. 9). This indicates that the way of connection of the
transverse slat with the sides of the piece of furniture exerts no sig-
Table 3 nificant impact on the construction stiffness. Moreover, calculation
Stiffness of joints.

Property Unit Type of joint

LCD LE1D LE2D SE1 SE1D
Pmax N 394.33 199.51 210.72 145.29 195.03
SD 13.09 30.83 24.65 14.85 12.11
DPmax mm 16.22 7.07 10.93 3.92 6.39
SD 0.07 0.07 0.09 0.01 0.01
0.4 Pmax N 158.28 77.21 86.34 60.98 78.69
SD 25.93 7.72 16.92 11.69 16.42
DP0.4 mm 2.07 1.25 2.14 0.62 0.76
SD 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01
Kj N/mm 76.6 62.0 40.3 98.7 104.2
Es MPa 62.5 50.3 32.5 292.6 311.1

SD – standard deviation.

similar relationships were found to occur between the calculated

values of stiffness moduli of Es joints. LCD joints were characterised
by Es = 62.5 MPa. This modulus was by 24.3% higher in comparison
with the elasticity modulus of LE1D joints and by 55.1% higher than
the elasticity modulus of LE2D joints. For SE1 and SE1D joints, the
elasticity modulus of joints Es was: 292.6 MPa and 311.1 MPa,
respectively corresponding to, respectively, 468.2% and 497.6% of
the reference LCD joint stiffness.
It is evident from the performed analysis that short joints with
arms 150 mm long were characterised by the highest stiffness [44].
Stiffness of these joints depends only slightly on the application of
dowels between eccentric couplings. On the other hand, stiffness
changes are significantly influenced by distances between connec-
tors [10,11,32–34]. Extension of the joint length from 150 mm to
500 mm and, consequently, of the distance between connectors Fig. 8. Form of the deformation of the analysed piece of furniture.
(Fig. 2), reduced values of the elasticity modulus by 4–5 times. In
addition, it is evident from the performed calculations that the
elasticity modulus Es expresses better stiffness of the analysed
joint than the Kj coefficient [44]. This coefficient depends only on
the load and its corresponding deflection. On the other hand, mod-
ulus of elasticity of joints constitutes a composite function of many
variables. Apart from the load and its corresponding deflection, it
also depends on the material elasticity of the joints arms as well
as on the length and dimensions of the cross-section of arms. In
addition, it is easier to apply this solution in virtual prototyping
methods utilising finite elements methods [44].

3.2. Impact of joint stiffness on furniture stiffness

Fig. 8 presents an exemplification form of deformation of a piece

of furniture established on the basis of numerical calculations. The Fig. 9. Stiffness of the analysed piece of furniture.
 J. Smardzewski et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 260–266 265

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[45] PN EN 310: 1994 Wood-based panels. Determination of modulus of elasticity
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[46] PN EN 323: 1999 Wood-based panels. Determination of density.