Design improvement of Sofa Structural Components based on load path analysis considering cost & weight efficiency

Palliser是一家设计和制造高品质家具的顶级本地制造商。像Palliser这样的家具制造商在设计和制造满足或超过客户期望的高质量产品方面面临着不断的挑战，同时对业务具有成本效益。为了应对这种情况，Palliser正在重新设计产品，以提高成本效益，同时保持/提高产品的质量，具有高稳定性和重量轻。本项目将对沙发框架结构的荷载传递路径进行分析，以指导结构设计，提高结构的承载能力，同时降低结构的成本和重量。首先建立结构的有限元模型（FEM）。将考虑并校准不同软材料连接到框架的不同负载条件。然后，应用载荷传递路径分析工具U* 对沙发框架有限元进行静载荷分析，以找到将所施加的载荷传递到框架不同位置的精确载荷路径。在精确载荷路径的指导下，对沙发框架结构进行了新的设计，并进行了样机的制作和试验。新设计应具有更好的结构强度和/或成本效率，并指导其类似产品和结构的设计。**********

Palliser is a top rated local manufacture designing and making high quality furniture. Furniture manufacturers like Palliser experience a constant challenge of designing and manufacturing high quality products that meet or exceed customer expectations while being cost effective for the business. To deal with this situation, Palliser is working on the product re-design to improve cost efficiency while keeping/improving the quality of the products with high stability and light weight. In this project, load transfer paths analysis of a sofa frame structure will be conducted to guide the structural design with enhanced loading capacity as well as cost and weight efficiency. A finite element model (FEM) of the structure will be built first. Different loading conditions with different soft materials attached to the frame will be considered and calibrated. A loading transfer path analysis tool, U*, is then applied to the static load analysis of the sofa frame FEM to find the exact load path transferring the applied load to different positions of the frame. With the guidance of the accurate load paths, we will have a new design of the sofa frame structure, and a prototype will be fabricated and tested. The new design is supposed to be with better structural strength and/or cost efficiency and guide the design of their similar products and structures. **********