Temperature Dissipation Rate and Its Effect on Corrugated Box Compression Strength

Research Track

Abstract

Environmental conditions have effects on the strength of corrugated shipping boxes. Conditioning boxes to anticipated temperature and relative humidity before testing is a customary practice. However, testing these boxes under a desirable temperature and relative humidity has become a challenge for many testing laboratories. Most laboratories test these boxes under ambient conditions at 73℉ and 50% relative humidity (RH) regardless of the values used in conditioning. It takes time for humidity to change. However, the temperature changes much faster.
The temperature dissipation rate and its effect on corrugated box compression strength were reported in this article. Once a box is removed from an environmental chamber, the temperature of the box surface converges to the ambient temperatures, as shown in the equations below, where 𝑡 is the lapse time in minutes and 𝑇𝑝 is the temperature as a percentage of the peak temperature.
𝑇𝑝=0.5083𝑡2−7.6263𝑡+98.287 for conditioning temperature above ambient
𝑇𝑝= −0.6266𝑡2+11.209𝑡−97.957 for conditioning temperature below ambient
The average box compression strength equations are shown below, where 𝑇 is the temperature from an infrared camera or conditioning in ℉ and 𝑃 is the average peak force in pounds.
𝑃=18.529𝑇−859.23 for temperature measured by an infrared camera
𝑃=0.9281𝑇+476.01 for temperature used for conditioning

Keywords: Temperature dissipation rate; Corrugated box; Effect of temperature; Compression strength