The mechanical and geometrical properties of impact targets greatly influence the outcome of a drop test. The International Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR) as well as ISO 2248 describe the characteristics of impact targets for drop tests of dangerous goods packagings. According to these regulations, the impact target's surface needs to be unyielding, under testing conditions non‐deformable, flat and integral with a mass at least 50 times that of the heaviest packaging to be tested. The problem is that many production facilities, especially manufacturers of corrugated fibreboard boxes, do not have their own testing device with the required 50 times mass ratio of the impact target for a regulation compliant drop test during series production. Furthermore, at UN level, it is considered necessary to revise these requirements. In the present paper, the impact target requirements are examined in detail and compared with those in other technical areas (e.g., impact target for container for the transport of radioactive materials). A research method is being developed to investigate the dependency between the mass ratio of the packaging and the target as well as the damage resistance of a drop tested package in relation to specific design characteristics. The results are of high relevance for industry purposes and intended to ensure a uniform level of safety assessment for the mechanical testing of dangerous goods packagings.

For dangerous goods packagings, drop testing onto an essential unyielding target can be used to assess the mechanical resistance to impact loads. Adopted regulations like Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR)/Regulation concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID) require that the impact surface provided shall be integral with a mass at least 50 times than that of the heaviest package to be tested. The problem is that many manufacturers do not possess impact targets that satisfy the required 50 times mass ratio for regulative drop tests during series production. The objective of this work is to verify existing and define improved criteria for impact target structures based on systematic investigations. Previous evidence highlights the relevance of other parameters in addition to the mass ratio. Therefore, in this research, a variation of drop test parameters was carried out experimentally. Furthermore, numerical vibration analysis was applied to investigate the deformability of the impact surface. The results conclude that the mass ratio of 1:50 cannot be defined as a decisive criterion. In order to determine the influence of further drop test parameters, the research findings were used to validate a parametric model that assesses impact target deflection. An approximation quality of over 90% was achieved. As a result, new evaluation criteria are proposed. First, a method for identifying critical impact target designs is provided. Second, a new comprehensive formula compares the approximated maximum deflection of a real impact target to the respective theoretical threshold derived from a worst‐case assumption. In practice, this leads to great advantages in the evaluation of already installed impact targets for dangerous goods packagings.

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