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On a fast-track over several weeks, we worked with Paoli Furniture’s Industrial Design resources in order to create the complex surface geometry of an arm, arm caps, and hidden structural brackets for their newest commercial office chair. We were challenged to balance aesthetics with structural and manufacturing process requirements. This also included the various sets of materials for the different components of the chair, including polished die cast aluminum, internal steel fabricated armature over-molded with polyurethane, and urethane molded over stamped steel sheet.

An initial industrial design sketch was provided from the designer, which was then translated into CAD for further refinement and analysis. This office chair needed to support weight on the arms, and the cantilevered design created challenges not seen on most chairs. Numerous Finite Element Analyses (FEAs) were performed to refine and confirm the strength of the arm. Rapid prototypes were then produced in-house and painted for installation on the remainder of the prototype chair, along with two complex-angle steel brackets to hold everything together.