Determination of Safety Factors for Mango Fruit Paperboard Transport Crates under Refrigerated Conditions

Abstract

The use of corrugated board packaging is very popular in most industry sectors, but the food industry is one of the main consumers. Special requirements are placed on corrugated board in the food industry since the level of humidity necessary may be as high as 85-90% rH and this can greatly influence on the performance of the packaging. This influencing circumstance is taken into account in this paper when estimating a safety factor aimed at reducing risk. Knowing the safety factor can save transport and material costs, and can also prevent serious damage during the distribution of goods. The aim of this study is to determine the influence of humidity, pre-compression and load carriers on the stability of corrugated board mango fruit crates and thus to determine the safety factor. The results show that it is possible to calculate the safety factor by measuring realistic static stresses. Further researches into determining the dynamic stresses are required so as completing the calculation of the safety factor.