The Effect of the Stiffness of Unit Load Components on Pallet Deflection and Box Compression Strength

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.