Studying Behavior of Paperboard Box: Experiment and Finite Element Model

In the transportation and distribution of goods, cardboard boxes are often subjected to mechanical impacts such as shocks and random vibrations, which can cause damage to the goods. Many studies have focused on the durability of corrugated cardboard boxes. However, there is very limited research on compact cardboard boxes, especially in the case of exposure to random vibrations. In this study, static and dynamic tests on cardboard boxes were designed and conducted to determine compression strength, natural frequencies, and modal characteristics of the boxes. Subsequently, a finite element model of cardboard boxes taking into account the effects of the box manufacturing process on the mechanical properties of the cardboard, was developed to perform numerical simulations under compression and random vibrations. In this context, the in-plane orthotropic elastic-plastic behavior model of rigid cardboard was implemented in the Abaqus software through a VUMAT subroutine. Additionally, the parameters of the model were determined through an inverse identification process. Finally, numerical simulations of compression and random vibration tests were carried out to validate the experimental results. The comparison results show that the power spectral density (PSD) response of the mass/box system under random vibrations obtained through numerical simulations is consistent with the responses obtained from experimental measurements. Furthermore, the predicted force-displacement curves demonstrate good agreement with the measured curves.