Analysis and verification of a Watt I six-bar furniture hinge mechanism

The analysis and verification of a Watt I six-bar furniture hinge mechanism were carried out in this article. Using the characteristics of the topological structure of existing hinge mechanisms and design requirement specification, six hinge designs were synthesized. The most suitable design was selected for kinematic analysis with the vector loop method. The equations of motion of the mechanism were then derived by the Hamilton principle and Lagrange undetermined multipliers method and simplified using coordinate partitioning method. The differential algebraic equation was subsequently solved by using the Runge-Kutta method. From numerical simulation, the dynamic response of the door under various loading conditions was obtained and was found to fulfil the design requirements and constraints. Results obtained from experiments and numerical simulation were comparable, which demonstrated the success of this study. It is anticipated that this research will be beneficial to the further development of hinge designs for use in furniture.