Strength properties of furniture corner joints constructed with different wooden connectors and wood-based materials

Abstract

Strength properties of furniture corner joints constructed with different wooden connectors and wood-based materials. The aims of this study were to determine the influence of the type of invisible wooden connectors on the strength in glued corner joints for chipboard and MDF, the most popular boards in box furniture. Three variants of connectors arrangement were considered: variant I - with the use of 4 wood grooven beech dowels, Variant II - with the use 2 beech Domino pins, Variant III - connectors mixed arrangement. Experiment results indicated that samples prepared using joining with dowels provided the highest strength values of all variants (F=1169 N for MDF panel, F= 617 for chipboard panel). Moreover, it has been observed that the corner connection with Domino pins is the type of connection with the lowest strength. It is worth noting that the above tendency was observed in both types of wood-based panels. The influence of the material also turned out to be a statistically significant factor in the analysis of joint strength. The use of MDF panel increased the strength values ,by 47% of the dowel joint, by 36% of the Domino pins and 34% of the connectors mixed arrangement, compared to their use in chipboard.