Stress analysis contributes to "perfect" chair
An
Ansys product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Aug 12, 2003
When office furniture manufacturer Allsteel set itself the lofty task of creating the "perfect" office chair, finite element analysis played a key role.
When office furniture manufacturer Allsteel set itself the lofty task of creating the "perfect" office chair, the company decided to call it number 19 because it has 18 major components, with the human as part number 19.
Despite the name, the Allsteel 19 chair is made primarily of cast-recycled aluminium and with a retail price of around Eur 1300, has achieved critical acclaim in the office furniture and design industries.
The chair design started from a clean slate and the computational analysis group's part of achieving Allsteel's mission was to ensure that the chair was both strong and reliable because, for the first time, the company was offering a lifetime warranty.
In addition, the chair had to meet strict standards set by the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA).
One of the key tools used by the team was finite element analysis (FEA).
Because of the demands of the project and the complexity of the chair, Allsteel ran more than 300 analysis cases on the chair using Ansys Multiphysics FEA software.
The effort helped minimise both dependence on prototyping and repeated testing of the Allsteel 19 chair.
According to Emad Tanbour, a Senior Project Manager at Hon Technology, Allsteel relies heavily on Ansys stress analysis and use it extensively before investing in prototyping or testing.
When questioned on about how the project might have progressed had it not been for Ansys, Tanbour added: "You just couldn't design some of these components by hand.
Using Ansys shortens the design process by at least three orders of magnitude".
The extensive analysis even played a role in marketing the Allsteel 19 chair.
For the product launch, a virtual reality show was created to demonstrate the chair and how it was designed, engineered and manufactured.
Animations from the Ansys analysis - showing deflections - and CAD models were incorporated into this production.
The Ansys animations were included in a DVD video made to promote the product as well, showing how the chair was thoroughly analysed and tested.
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