Design of European hinge using graphical synthesis

The European hinge is the type of hinge often found in IKEA cabinets. Its design is unique since you have two cabinet doors, which can be opened at the same time, with their hinges next to each other. This action is possible because the cabinet door is mounted on a fourbar linkage, and it translates into the cabinet slightly. This design is unlike that of a traditional door hinge where the door moves the width of the door in the adjacent direction. To develop this linkage, I used graphical synthesis in SolidWorks to constrain the degrees of motion until I found a viable solution. A report on the procedure I used is shown below.

Next, I created a SolidWorks model and constrained it to ensure that there were no collisions and that the links stopped in the correct places. Shown below is the SolidWorks model.

Finally, I laser cut the hinge out of balsa wood and connected the links with rivets. The result is shown below.