Browsing by Author "Phanthanousy, Samantha"

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    The Effect of the Stiffness of Unit Load Components on Pallet Deflection and Box Compression Strength
    Phanthanousy, Samantha (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-08)
    Currently, pallets are designed assuming that the load is distributed evenly on the top of the pallet. When pallets are loaded with packages such as corrugated boxes or returnable plastic containers, due to their physical shape, packages, are not capable of deforming freely with the pallet and a bridging phenomenon occurs. During this load bridging phenomenon, a portion of the vertical forces are redistributed as horizontal forces which causes the redistribution of the vertical compression stresses on the pallet towards the support. As a result, the deflection of the pallet can decrease and the load capacity of the pallet can increase significantly. The second chapter of this paper investigates the effect of package content on pallet deflection. The study concluded that package content did not have a significant effect on pallet deflection within the boundary conditions of the experiment. The third part of this paper considers how a specific pallet characteristic could affect the way a corrugated box performs. Standard box design procedures include adjustments of estimated compression strength for relative humidity, overhang on pallets, vibration, and alignment of boxes. However, there is no adjustment factor for pallet stiffness. The objective of the study described in this thesis is to find an answer for how the compression strength of a box is affected by pallet stiffness and top deckboard twist. The study concluded that the pallet stiffness and top deckboard twist do not have an effect on the compression strength of the box until less than 12% of the area box is supported.
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    The Influence of Package Size and Flute Type of Corrugated Boxes on Load Bridging in Unit Loads
    Park, Jonghun; Horvath, Laszlo; White, Marshall S.; Phanthanousy, Samantha; Araman, Philip; Bush, Robert J. (2017-01)
    Shipping pallets often are designed with the assumption that the payload carried is flexible and uniformly distributed on the pallet surface. However, packages on the pallet can act as a series of discrete loads, and the physical interactions among the packages can add stiffness to the pallet/load combination. The term 'load bridging' has been used to describe this phenomenon. The study reported in this paper investigated the relationships of package size, corrugated flute type and pallet stiffness to load bridging and the resulting unit-load deflection. The experimental results indicated that an increase in box size changed the unit-load deflection by as much as 75%. Flute type was found to impact load bridging and the resulting unit-load deflection. Changing the corrugated box flute type from B-flute or BC-flute to E-flute reduces the unit-load deflection by as much as 40%. Also, experimental data indicates that the effect of package size and corrugated board flute type on pallet deflection is the greatest for low stiffness pallets. The results provide information that can be used to design unit loads that use material more efficiently. Copyright (C) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.