Optimising ash wood chairs

Abstract

In Sweden, forest research has been emphasised on mainly two species of wood, i.e. pine and spruce. However, we have also a number of hardwoods which could be utilised for furniture manufacturing, cabinets etc. Nowadays, these hardwoods are a slumbering resource in our country. Most of our broad leafed species are found as small stands inside our soft wood forests and hence not utilised in the most profitable way. For example, much of our birch wood is ground to paper fibres even if it would be perfect for high valued veneer. Instead, most of our birch. veneer is imported from Finland. In order to increase the interest for Swedish hardwoods we therefore have started research in this field and have now designed a chair made of ash wood,Fraxinus excelsior. Most chairs are made up of structural elements called indetermined frames which makes it a rather tedious task to analyse the internal forces in the frame. However, by using the Finite Element Method, FEM, it has been possible to reduce this drawback. This paper shows how a chair could be analysed, and designed, by use of methods common in other disciplines than furniture manufacturing. We also present results, in the form of stress-strain diagrams, from tests made on Swedish ash.