Optimum dowel spacing for corner joints in 32-mm cabinet construction

The increased utilization of European 32-mm cabinet construction in the Turkish furniture industry has highlighted the need for practical strength performance evaluation of case construction. A basic understanding of the influence of dowel spacing on comer joint strength performance in case construction is necessary to assist furniture manufacturers as they engineer their products. To date, limited research had been done. This paper presents results of evaluating the effect of dowel spacing on bending moment capacity of comer joints in 32-mm case construction. Laminated particleboard and laminated medium density fiberboard (MDF) comer joints were tested under compression and tension loads. Experiments have shown that maximum moment is obtained in joints when the spacing between dowels is at least 96 mm. Also, statistical analysis of the test data indicated that joints loaded in tension and compression had significant differences at the 5 percent significance level in moment resistance since joint strength was strongly related to the internal bond strength of the board loaded in compression. In both tension and compression tests, MDF corner joints were stronger than particleboard comer joints.