## 4 Discussion  
In Section 3, the selected numerical results obtained within the research studies are described. In Section 3.1, the validation of the numerical model with the literature data is presented with very good results, comparing the box compression strength obtained in tests in the literature with the numerical outcome computed using the FE model developed in the paper. In Section 3.2, selected results of systematic numerical studies on the box compression strength drop due to overhanging are presented. It is worth noting that all results are supplied in Appendix A. Nevertheless, many practical conclusions can be drawn from Section 3.2. First, in Figure 3, where the data displayed are averaged through box dimensions, one may observe that, independently of the board used for the short-side, long-side and diagonal direction, the \(\Delta\)_BCT_s are almost identical. Bearing in mind that a relatively wide spectrum of boards were selected, it may be concluded that the material (board) properties have a negligible effect on BCT drop due to overhanging. Similar conclusion may be drawn from the tests performed in Ref. [35], where two types of board were used with similar properties to the C and BC boards. It appears that the primary influence on the \(\Delta\)_BCT_  
Figure 6: Box compression strength reduction due to overhanging in packaging with a square base (600 \(\times\) 600 mm) with increasing height made of different corrugated boards: (**a**) B-flute, (**b**) C-flute, (**c**) EB-flute and (**d**) BC-flute. Figure 7: Box compression strength reduction due to overhanging in packaging (B-flute): (**a**) 600 \(\times\) 150 \(\times\) 600 and (**b**) 600 \(\times\) 300 \(\times\) 150 boxes. drop lies in the overall structure, specifically alterations in overhanging lengths or box dimensions, rather than a change in the material itself. Second, in Figure 4, cubic packaging is shown to verify whether the size of such type of packaging influences the drop in box compression strength. Based on Figure 4, it may be observed that the size of cubic boxes plays a minor role. For overhanging between 15% and 35%, the limit values of \(\Delta BCT\) differ around 5 percentage points, and for other overhanging intervals, the difference is always less than 3 percentage points and often close to 0 percentage points. The spread for different sizes of boxes (from cubic 150 mm box to 600 mm box) is the same for the side direction overhanging as well as for the diagonal direction overhanging. Here, the \(\Delta BCT\) is also independent of the material (board) used for computations (for instance, please compare Figure 4a,b). Additionally, for boxes with a square base of 150 mm, with various box heights, the \(\Delta BCT\) does not differ substantially (please see Figure 5). The spread between different heights, independently of the board used, is less than 4 percentage points. In fact, only the box with a height of 150 mm differs by 4 percentage points from the others (blue curves). This is valid for the whole overhanging interval analyzed. Similar observations may be drawn from Figure 6, where boxes with a square base of 600 mm are presented. Here, the material (board) effect is also negligible. The box with a height of 150 mm (blue curves) differs substantially from the 600 mm box case, but the mean difference between the limit values for the 150 mm box case is about 6-10 percentage points. The 150 mm box height curves lie on the other side of the plot compared with Figure 5; therefore, \(\Delta BCT\) is larger than in the other cases. Analyzing Figures 5 and 6 together, it can be approximately concluded that the more the package dimensions differ from the cubic case, the greater the \(\Delta BCT\) for a given overhanging. This conclusion was also confirmed in the results of other cases of all the 40 boxes analyzed.