Mechanical Properties of Corner Joints Made of Honeycomb Panels with Double Arrow-Shaped Auxetic Cores

3D Printing Application in Wood Furniture Components Assembling

Additive manufacturing (AM) is used in many fields and is a method used to replace wood components or wood-jointed furniture components in the furniture industry. Replacing wood joints by 3D printed connectors would be an advantage, considering the fact that during the process of assembling furniture, the execution technology of the joints is difficult, time-consuming, and labor-intensive. Advanced technology of AM applied in furniture manufacturing helps the designers to create new concepts of product design, with no limits of shape, number of joints, color, or size. The diversity of 3D printers and AM technologies provides the selection of materials in relation with the applicability of the 3D printed object. In this respect, the objective of the present research is to design a 3D printed connector to be used for jointing three chair components, namely the leg and two stretchers made from larch (Larix decidua Mill.) wood, and to use reinforced polylactic acid (PLA) fiberglass (20 wt. %) filament for 3D printing this connector using AM with fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology. The design of the connector, the possibility of using this type of material, and the deposition method of filament were investigated in this research. For this purpose, several evaluation methods were applied: microscopic investigation with 50×, 100×, and 200× magnifications, both of the filament and of the 3D printed connector; mechanical testing of corner joint formed with the help of connector between chair leg and the two stretchers; and a microscopic investigation of the connectors’ defects that occurred after applying the compression and tensile loads on the diagonal direction of the L-type joint. The microscopic investigation of the composite filament revealed the agglomerations of glass fibers into the core matrix and areas where the distribution of the reinforcements was poor. The heterogeneous structure of the filament and the defects highlighted in the 3D printed connectors by the microscopic investigation contributed to the mechanical behavior of L-type connecting joints. The bending moments resulting from compression and tensile tests of the 3D printed connectors were compared to the results recorded after testing, under the same conditions, the normal mortise–tenon joint used to assemble the abovementioned chair components. The larch wood strength influenced the mechanical results and the conclusions of the microscopic investigations, as well as the analysis of the broken connectors after testing recommended the change of connector design and filament deposition direction.

Structural Application of Lightweight Panels Made of Waste Cardboard and Beech Veneer

In recent years, the furniture design trends include ensuring ergonomic standards, development of new environmentally friendly materials, optimised use of natural resources, and sustainably increased conversion of waste into value-added products. The circular economy principles require the reuse, recycling or upcycling of materials. The potential of reusing waste corrugated cardboard to produce new lightweight boards suitable for furniture and interior applications was investigated in this work. Two types of multi-layered panels were manufactured in the laboratory from corrugated cardboard and beech veneer, bonded with urea-formaldehyde (UF) resin. Seven types of end corner joints of the created lightweight furniture panels and three conventional honeycomb panels were tested. Bending moments and stiffness coefficients in the compression test were evaluated. The bending strength values of the joints made of waste cardboard and beech veneer exhibited the required strength for application in furniture constructions or as interior elements. The joints made of multi-layer panels with a thickness of 51 mm, joined by dowels, demonstrated the highest bending strength and stiffness values (33.22 N∙m). The joints made of 21 mm thick multi-layer panels and connected with Confirmat had satisfactory bending strength values (10.53 N∙m) and Minifix had the lowest strength values (6.15 N∙m). The highest stiffness values (327 N∙m/rad) were determined for the 50 mm thick cardboard honeycomb panels connected by plastic corner connector and special screw Varianta, and the lowest values for the joints made of 21 mm thick multi-layer panels connected by Confirmat (40 N∙m/rad) and Minifix (43 N∙m/rad), respectively. The application of waste corrugated cardboard as a structural material for furniture and interiors can be improved by further investigations.

A New Type of Hierarchical Honeycomb in-Plane Impact Study

Honeycomb materials have low density, high specific strength and stiffness, impact resistance, and good sound insulation effect, and therefore are widely used in aerospace, automobile, and ship field applications. In this paper, we study the in-plane impact response of a second-order hierarchical honeycomb (SHH) material. Its main structure is a hexagonal honeycomb, and the substructure is composed of an augmented double arrow honeycomb (ADAH) negative Poisson’s ratio unit. Through a finite element simulation, the failure stress of an hierarchical honeycomb in two directions of quasi-static crushing and dynamic crushing was analyzed; the failure stress of the hierarchical honeycomb under different densities, different speeds, and different substructures was discussed; and the theoretical failure stress was verified. The numerical analysis results show that a second-order hierarchical honeycomb (SHH) has better collapse stress than a first-order regular hexagonal honeycomb (FHH) and an augmented double arrow honeycomb (ADAH).