edwardmatos
Mechanical
- Oct 20, 2009
- 7
[I originally posted this on the eFunda forum, but only realised after posting how inactive that forum is! I have now requested that the eFunda post be deleted to avoid double posting.]
Hello. A batch of our products we recently produced reached the user in damaged boxing because the corrugated cardboard boxes we put them in were clearly not up to the job of being stacked up in transport. This is in the Far East, so communication with our box supplier isn't great - and so we figured that we should do some calculations at our end to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Does anyone know of any resources from which I can learn a bit about packaging engineering, and refer to typical data tables, to ensure that our new box design will not be crushed? I suppose I will need to learn a bit about cardboard weights vs. stacking strengths, different box designs, and safety margins for applying in the case of imperfect stacking alignment, as well as dynamic loads.
To give it the right perspective, I'm looking at two boxes with the following internal dimension requirements:
365 x 185 x 75 mm - 1.35kg
180 x 180 x 50 mm - 0.70kg
For the first one I am able to arrange the contents such that I can put a "brace" halfway along the length of the box, to prop up the middle section.
I'm no expert in packaging and logistics (yet!) but I gather a typical pallet height for an efficient fit into a container is 2.2m heigh. So, accounting for a bit of extra space for box thickness, and assuming we're stacking them with their largest face on the horizontally plane, we're looking at a stack 27 units high for box 1, and 40 units high for box 2. At a bare minimum (not including safety margins for misaligned stacking and dynamic loads) the bottom box for number 1 needs to withstand 37kg (550Pa), and the bottom box for number 2 needs to withstand 28kg (870Pa). Without knowing anything about cardboard boxes, I imagine a box that can sustain those kind of loads must only come at a hefty premium. Unless there's some sort of lattice effect that gives the bottom boxes extra strength once they're packaged in outer cartons and bound together with tight cling film as you see on palletised goods? Otherwise, presumably there's also an optimisation in trading off cardboard thickness vs. wasted empty shipping space in your container?
Lot's of questions... A reference to a good online resource or book would suffice as a very helpful answer. Many thanks in advance for any help provided.
Edward Matos
AMIMechE
Hello. A batch of our products we recently produced reached the user in damaged boxing because the corrugated cardboard boxes we put them in were clearly not up to the job of being stacked up in transport. This is in the Far East, so communication with our box supplier isn't great - and so we figured that we should do some calculations at our end to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Does anyone know of any resources from which I can learn a bit about packaging engineering, and refer to typical data tables, to ensure that our new box design will not be crushed? I suppose I will need to learn a bit about cardboard weights vs. stacking strengths, different box designs, and safety margins for applying in the case of imperfect stacking alignment, as well as dynamic loads.
To give it the right perspective, I'm looking at two boxes with the following internal dimension requirements:
365 x 185 x 75 mm - 1.35kg
180 x 180 x 50 mm - 0.70kg
For the first one I am able to arrange the contents such that I can put a "brace" halfway along the length of the box, to prop up the middle section.
I'm no expert in packaging and logistics (yet!) but I gather a typical pallet height for an efficient fit into a container is 2.2m heigh. So, accounting for a bit of extra space for box thickness, and assuming we're stacking them with their largest face on the horizontally plane, we're looking at a stack 27 units high for box 1, and 40 units high for box 2. At a bare minimum (not including safety margins for misaligned stacking and dynamic loads) the bottom box for number 1 needs to withstand 37kg (550Pa), and the bottom box for number 2 needs to withstand 28kg (870Pa). Without knowing anything about cardboard boxes, I imagine a box that can sustain those kind of loads must only come at a hefty premium. Unless there's some sort of lattice effect that gives the bottom boxes extra strength once they're packaged in outer cartons and bound together with tight cling film as you see on palletised goods? Otherwise, presumably there's also an optimisation in trading off cardboard thickness vs. wasted empty shipping space in your container?
Lot's of questions... A reference to a good online resource or book would suffice as a very helpful answer. Many thanks in advance for any help provided.
Edward Matos
AMIMechE
![[idea]](/data/assets/smilies/idea.gif "[idea] [idea]")
![[r2d2]](/data/assets/smilies/r2d2.gif "[r2d2] [r2d2]")
