Material Selection for a Chair

University of Michigan

2012

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Description: Material exploration in CES Edu Pack

The project was to choose the proper materials for the chair’s components considering some mechanical and non-mechanical criteria.

First I applied the mechanical criteria to filter of materials for the chair's plates, with the highest "strength-to-weight" and "stiffness-to-weight" ratio. Then I applied a second set of mechanical criteria, to filter materials for the chair's legs, with the highest "strength-to-weight" and "stiffness-to-weight" ratio.  Once the filters for materials' mechanical criteria were set, I applied other filters regarding durability and cost.
For the chair's  plates, “Glass” and “Wooden” materials take the lead based on the strength, while “Polymers” and “Fabrics” are the top ranked materials considering the stiffness criteria.
For the chair's legs, “Metals” can be mostly seen among the top 10 winners considering the strength criteria, while “Polymers” are the majority of materials considering the stiffness criteria.

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Credits: Niloufar Emami

Structural criteria for chair's plates and legs