Experimental study on vibration transmissibility of Pre-loaded XPE and PE packaging cushioning material

Abstract

Most of the shipped products are sensitive against shock and vibration events during the distribution. Various cushioning materials are usually used to prevent the product damages. During the design process the protective packaging system is developed by the engineers based on the cushion and vibration transmissibility features (ie. cushion curve) of the material used. However, after the assembly of the packaged-product, these are stored for various long periods in warehouse. During this time the products pre-load the cushioning material and its parameters can be changed. The main goal of this study is to evaluate the vibration transmissibility of PE and XPE cushioning material at varied storage (pre-loaded) time and static load conditions. Four different kinds of duration (1 hour, 10 hours, 100 hours and 1000 hours) were used for the pre-loading period at three different static loads (3.488 kPa, 4.651 kPa, and 6.976 kPa), and then at 0.5 oct/min sine sweep vibration the peak frequencies of response and vibration transmissibility, and damping ratio were determined. The results show that the effect of pre-loading is minimal by PE material, but can influence the resonance frequencies by XPE cushioning material. The findings of this study help the packaging engineers to understand better the mechanism of these cushioning materials and to design suitable protective packaging systems.