eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Mechanical Engineering 2328-4110 2020-05-27 8 1 26 39 10.12691/ajme-8-1-4 AJME2020814 article Ralph L. Barnett Corresponding author: rbarnett@triodyne.com 1 Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois Chairman, Triodyne Inc., 450 Skokie Blvd., Ste. 604, Northbrook, Illinois It is deceiving that an otherwise super-stable file cabinet can become critically unstable when it is unloaded or lightly loaded. This may expose office workers to the specter of a 200 lb. file cabinet striking the floor at 13 mph. File cabinet design is guided by standards that do not reflect ˇ°worst case scenarios,ˇ± do not specify realistic safety loads, do not include snagging forces, and do not account for the effects of carpeting that may lower the tip resistance by 40%. This paper introduces three well known anti-tip concepts that radically improve the stability of file cabinets; elastic footprint extender, passively deployed outriggers, and rollers that trade off rotation for translation. These traditional concepts are added to the current arsenal of safety tip-over devices that include wall and floor bolting, ganging, under-mounting, counter-weighting, and single drawer deployment interlocks. The stability principles discussed are also applicable to such things as furniture, appliances, and tool cabinets. http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajme/8/1/4/ajme-8-1-4.pdf stability overturn tip tip over upset topple turn over