The Strength of Egg Trays under Compression: A Numerical and Experimental Study

Abstract

This work concerns the analysis of egg packages subjected to compression. Experimental investigations were carried out to determine the curves of compression and maximum loads. To compare packages accessible on the market, several different shapes of egg packages were tested after being conditioned in air with a relative humidity of 50%. Several paper structures in stock were compressed. By validating the experiment results, numerical computations based on the finite element method (FEM) were executed. The estimations of a numerical model were performed with the use of the perfect plasticity of paper and with the assumption of large strains and deflections. Our own two structures of egg packaging were taken into account: basic and modified. The material of the packages was composed of 90% recovered paper and 10% coconut fibres. This paper involved the numerical modelling of such complex packaging. Moreover, our research showed that introducing several features into the structures of the packaging can improve the stiffness and raise the maximum load. Thanks to the application of ribs and grooves, the strength ratio and compression stiffness, in comparison to the basic tray, increased by approximately 23.4% and 36%, respectively. Moreover, the obtained indexes of modified trays were higher than the majority of the studied market trays.

Development of a Friction-Driven Finite Element Model to Simulate the Load Bridging Effect of Unit Loads Stored in Warehouse Racks

“…Simulations using the finite element method have been used extensively in the mechanical engineering field and recently have been widely adopted in the packaging field. Research includes finite element analysis (FEA) of different packaging materials, such as wood [24], corrugated board [25][26][27][28], paperboard [29,30] and multiple others [31], including the extensive use of finite element models in the development of food packaging [27,[32][33][34][35].…”

Development of a spent cinnamon bark‐incorporated egg box and analysis of its effectiveness on internal quality characteristics of chicken eggs

“…The breakage of the lid in the egg boxes can directly impact on customer satisfaction, degree of damages/scratches of the eggs during transportation, contamination, spoilage, and quality deterioration of eggs during the storage period (Wickramasinghe et al, 2013). In the compression test, the maximum amount of force that should be supplied for the egg boxes was depending on the strength ratio (strength‐to‐weight ratio), design of the box, and load‐carrying capacity of the box (Czechowski et al, 2020).…”

Study and Design of Corrugated Cardboard Trays With Microwaves by Experimental Analysis (EA) and Finite Element Methods (FEM)

“…They have demonstrated, experimentally and by analysis of finished foods, that the corners are the areas subject to the maximum stress, due to local stiffening phenomena. Czechowski, Kmita-Fudalej and Szewczyk [38] studied the compression response of corrugated cardboard egg packs using finite element (FE) analysis, under the hypothesis of perfectly plastic behaviour of the material.…”