# Evaluation of Fruit and Vegetable Containers Made from Mulberry Wood (_Morus Alba_ L.) Waste
## 3 Results and Discussion
Plastic balls full of water (each weighing 200 g) were placed inside the container to reach a weight of 4.40 kg, as can be seen in Figure 4a. Six containers were tested, and the results obtained are shown in Table 4. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline
**Container No.** & **Deformation (mm)** \\ \hline
1 & 1.71 \\
2 & 2.11 \\
3 & 2.14 \\
4 & 1.77 \\
5 & 2.10 \\
6 & 2.10 \\ mean & 2.00 (0.23) \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Flexural strength of the base. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline
**Particleboard Type** & **Thickness (mm)** & **Density (kg/m\({}^{3}\))** & **Moisture Content (\%)** & **TS (24 h) (\%)** & **WA (24 h) (\%)** \\ \hline Mulberry pruning waste particleboard & 3.10 (0.42) & 853.86 (33.92) & 2.5 (0.6) & 21.4 (2.3) & 50.9 (3.6) \\ Conventional plywood & 2.95 (0.03) & 457.57 (7.20) & 5.39 (0.2) & 6.3 (1.2) & 86.5 (6.5) \\ \hline TS: Thickness swelling; WA: Water absorption. & RH: Moisture content of the boards. & Data in parentheses: \\ standard deviation. & & & & \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Physical properties of mulberry and conventional plywood. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline
**Board Type** & **MOR** & **MOE** & **IB** & **SH** \\  & **(N/mm\({}^{2}\))** & **(N/mm\({}^{2}\))** & **(N/mm\({}^{2}\))** & **(N/mm)** \\ \hline Agglomerate pruning mulberry & 20.51 (2.62) & 1906.70 (327.46) & 1.65 (0.45) & 68.36 (5.83) \\ Industrial plywood & 63.04 (12.40) & 6853.04 (1,924.1) & 0.73 (0.2) & 21.11 (1.58) \\ P3 requirements & 13 & 1800 & 0.50 & 0.8 \\ \hline Requirements for interior-grade type (including furniture), according to the EN 312 standard. MOR: Modulus of Rupture in flexion; MOE: Modulus of Elasticity; IB: Internal bonding; SH: Screw holding strength. Data in parentheses: standard deviation. & \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Properties of the mulberry and industrial plywood boards. According to the standard, base deformation must be \(\leq\)2 mm. Therefore, the mean base deformation of \(2.00\pm 0.23\) mm of mulberry pruning waste particleboards would indicate that the flexural strength value of their base is on the limit of being useful to the industry. However, we have to consider that the test was conducted using a 4.4 kg load instead of 4.377 kg, which was the exact value according to the standard. The stacking test was conducted on six containers. Two containers were stacked as shown in Figure 3(b) and loaded with a force \"C\", which is obtained by the formula:  
\[\text{C}=(0.418\times 2)\text{-}(2-1)\text{-}1.5=1254\text{ N}.\]  
A load \"C\" of 1660 N was applied and the values obtained are shown in Table 5. The compressive deformation limit established by the standard is 5% of the container's height. In this test, a value of 1.4% was obtained, which indicates that the containers meet the requirements of the stacking standard. Dynamic compressive strength tests were conducted on six containers. A dynamic load was applied to failure. The test results are shown in Table 6. A large standard deviation was observed between the values. This could be due to the fact that some containers were made with the external part of the particleboards, which had lower resistance values. According to the standard, the dynamic compressive strength should be \(\geq\)3500 kg \(\approx\) 34,300 N. Hence, the mean value of 19,500 N obtained indicates that these containers do not meet the requirements of the standard. During this test, the containers did not fail, but the testing machine stopped the test because the staples that joined the particleboards to the solid pine corners detached from the solid pine corners and the containers came apart. This may indicate that the 8 mm crown staples used were not suitable for this kind of containers; therefore, it would be of interest to study alternative joining methods or staples with a greater crown width. Figure 4: (**a**) Flexural strength test of the container’s base; (**b**) stacking test.