(Received 22 October 1989; accepted 12 February 1990)
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A stack of corrugated containers subjected to over-the-road vibrations behaves like a distributed spring-mass system. Severe stack vibrations can crush the bottom container, fatigue the product cushioning, and damage the product. Laboratory tests were conducted to characterize the spring-mass system response to vibration by using a force plate combined with a single accelerometer. By using the force plate, only two data acquisition channels are needed to measure the driving acceleration and response force beneath a container stack. The acceleration and force data become input to a model that reduces the stack to an equivalent single-degree-of-freedom system and identifies its properties. The merits of alternate stacking patterns and interior packaging can then be quantified in terms of their generalized mass, stiffness, and damping and the effect of these properties on the stack response. Cushioning vibration characteristics are determined for flexible product-container interactions. Container designs can be improved based on understanding the physics of transportation vibrations.
Research General Engineer, USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI
Stock #: JTE12499J