Finite Element-Based Simulation for Edgewise Compression Behavior of Corrugated Paperboard for Packaging of Agricultural Products  
[PERSON]  
1 Department of Bio-Industrial Machinery Engineering, Pusan National University, Miryang 50463, Korea; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
[PERSON]  
2 Department of Agricultural Engineering, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Korea; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
[PERSON]  
3 Postharvest Engineering Division, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Korea  
3 Department of Logistic Packaging, Kyoungbuk Science College, Chilgok 39913, Korea  
3 Department of Chemical Engineering, Keimyung University, Daegu 42601, Korea; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
[PERSON]  
4 Department of Applied  
Paper is an orthotropic material having different mechanical properties for each of the three principal material orientations [4]: Out-of-plane (thickness) direction (2), in-plane direction parallel to the rolling during processing (machine direction (MD)), and the in-plane direction normal to MD (cross direction (CD)), due to it having a different manufacturing process. Paper also has a highly non-linear behavior and large differences between tensile and compressive stiffness and strength for both MD and CD that limits the application of simple material models during numerical or finite element (FE) modeling [5]. The manufacturing direction (wave propagation) of the corrugated paperboard coincides with the MD of the liners. The flute direction and the out-of-plane (thickness) direction of the corrugated paperboard coincide with the CD and \(z\)-direction of the liners, respectively (Figure 1). Therefore, the corrugated paperboard is an orthotropic sandwich structure, which has liners providing bending stiffness and flutes providing shear stiffness [6; 7]. When top-to-bottom compression force is applied to a corrugated paperboard box, the four vertical edges and the side panels of the box support the compression force. Under compression force, the vertical edges of the box experience edgewise compression along the CD, and the side panels of the box experience bending along both the CD and MD. Therefore, the box compression test (BCT) value can be determined by both the edgewise compression test (ECT) value for CD and bending stiffness for CD and MD [6; 8; 9; 10]. The ECT value of the corrugated paperboard is used as a primary indicator representing the quality and compression strength of the corrugated paperboard box [11]. The shape and dimensions of the ECT specimens are different depending on various testing standards. There are four ECT methods used based on the various restrictions of the edge failure and bending behavior of the test specimen: (a) Edge-clamping method [12; 13], (b) neck-down method [13; 14], (c) rectangular test specimen method with small slenderness ratio [13; 15; 16; 17], and (d) edge-reinforced method (wax coating) [18; 19; 20]. Figure 2 shows a representative test specimen for each of the four methods. [PERSON] [21] found that the ECT value of the corrugated paperboard was the highest for the TAPPI T 838, followed by TAPPI T 811 and FEECO No.8. The difference in the ECT value was the smallest (approximately 15 kN/m) between the neck-down method in TAPPI T 838 and the edge-reinforcement method in TAPPI T 811, and was an average of 31% between TAPPI T 838 and FEECO No.8. The study pointed out that there was difficulty in defining the inherent characteristic value of particular corrugated paperboard due to the large difference in the ECT value, which was a result of the different test standards. The study concluded that the best method to describe the behavior of the corrugated paperboard under pure compression was the neck-down method in TAPPI T 838. [PERSON] [11] compared the ECT value between TAPPI T 811, 838, and 839 for a single-wall (SW) corrugated paperboard.