Estimation of the Compressive Strength of Corrugated Cardboard Boxes with Various Perforations

This paper presents a modified analytical formula for estimating the static top-to-bottom compressive strength of corrugated board packaging with different perforations. The analytical framework is based here on Heimerl’s assumption with an extension from a single panel to a full box, enhanced with a numerically calculated critical load. In the proposed method, the torsional and shear stiffness of corrugated cardboard, as well as the panel depth-to-width ratio is implemented in the finite element model used for buckling analysis. The new approach is compared with the successful though the simplified McKee formula and is also verified with the experimental results of various packaging designs made of corrugated cardboard. The obtained results indicate that for boxes containing specific perforations, simplified methods give much larger estimation error than the analytical–numerical approach proposed in the article. To the best knowledge of the authors, the influence of the perforations has never been considered before in the analytical or analytical–numerical approach for estimation of the compressive strength of boxes made of corrugated paperboard. The novelty of this paper is to adopt the method presented to include perforation influence on the box compressive strength estimation.