Incorporation of Bio Based Flax Fiber Reinforced Polymer Skins for Packaging Enhancements
Abstract
Packaging is a process to wrap goods or products to protect them during transportation and save costs. Transport packages are required to be strong and lightweight in order to be cost effective. Corrugated cardboard is therefore used as it has all these above mentioned features along with it being recyclable. However, using corrugated cardboard boxes has its own flaws when packing heavy items and storing them due to their low endurance to mechanical stresses. This paper presents an alternative option to corrugated cardboard boxes. Unidirectional flax fabric and bio based epoxy is used to fabricate flax fiber reinforced polymer(FRP) skin which replaced the cardboard skin in corrugated cardboard boxes thus creating a composite sandwich with flax fiber reinforced skin and corrugated cardboard core. Two flute varieties of corrugated cardboard viz. B and C flutes with bulk densities 170 and 127 kg/ m3were used for the core. The complex shaped core is represented by an orthotropic homogenous layer to perform efficient finite element analysis. The orthotropic homogenous layer is validated to have equivalent material properties as that of the corrugated cardboard. As cardboard boxes mainly undergo compressive stress due to stacking one on top of the other, two important tests are carried out to verify the quality of the boxes. These tests are performed using Finite Element Analysis in ANSYS software. Edgewise crush test is carried out to measure the in plane compression stress and Flat crush test is performed to measure the out of plane compression stress. Comparative study between corrugated cardboard boxes and the corrugated cardboard core sandwich boxes with flax fiber reinforced polymer skins via the load vs deformation plot is done to conclude whether the latter is an alternative option in the transportation industry. Further investigation is done by performing a four point bending test using Finite Element Analysis in ANSYS to understand the flexural deflection for both specimens to provide a better conclusion. Four point bending test is also performed on a specific specimen with dimensions to justify the response of the finite element model with respect to the actual response of the specimen via experimental analysis performed on the specimen.
Degree
M.Sc.
Advisors
Tovar, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Design|Industrial engineering|Mathematics|Mechanics|Packaging|Polymer chemistry|Transportation
Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server.