This research presents a technique to quantify morphological damage to flutes in corrugated fibreboard (CFB). The method involves laser cutting thin samples and analysing digital images of the flute profiles. The surface profiles of creased CFB before and after laser cutting were measured using fringe projection and showed that the sample preparation does not significantly affect the flute profile. After imaging the laser cut samples, skeleton analysis was used to derive a digitised profile of the flute shape. To characterise the level of damage to the flute profile, a similarity factor (SF) was introduced to quantify the relative difference between test sample and reference flute profiles. Validation of this analysis technique was done by generating known images of flute profile with variations that include distortions that could occur to CFB. These images were then fed into the skeleton analysis, and the results were compared with the original profile. This comparison showed good agreement between the initial and skeleton‐analysed flutes. A demonstration of the skeleton analysis on purposefully damaged actual CFB flute profiles shows that the SF reduces as the level of crushing increases, showing that the technique could be used to enumerate morphological damage to CFB during manufacture, conversion, and use.

One of the purposes of thermoplastic composites films and barrier dispersion coatings is to minimize the permeation of gases. In both cases, fillers and other additives are added during the film preparation to improve barrier properties. A high level of understanding has resulted from the study of the interaction between filler and polymer phases of thermoplastic composites, and a number of models have been developed to predict the relative permeability of these materials. However, barrier dispersion coatings have not been modelled in this way. The aim of this review was to discuss similarities and differences of thermoplastic composites and barrier dispersion coatings that may influence the applicability of the models for barrier dispersion coatings applied to paper-based materials. The models were developed as a function of the amount of fillers added in thermoplastic composites films and geometrical characteristics of the fillers such as size, thickness, shape and the distribution of fillers in the film. Two-and three-dimensional models with oriented and random arrangement of fillers were presented. Due to the parallel orientation and the similar length and width of fillers used in barrier dispersion coatings, three-dimensional models were more suitable to predict relative permeability. These models assumed plate-or circular-shaped fillers with parallel orientation. In order to prove the models, experimental information was required. Very limited data for barrier dispersion coatings with varying the amount of fillers have been reported in the literature. For this reason, further experiments are required under varied combinations of aspect ratio and the volume fraction of fillers.

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The hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) was used to optimise box design to maximise cooling performance, mechanical performance, pallet footprint, and container packing efficiency and to minimise cardboard usage. These factors are normally investigated independently, but the industry requires combined functionality. Here, we present a case study, for optimisation of regular slotted carton boxes filled with wrapped beef mince. After packing, individual boxes are chilled to a desired storage temperature and then palletised for shipping. Four models were developed to predict design performance, including cooling rate, mechanical performance, cardboard usage, and box stacking on pallets. The combination of the model results was used to score the average performance of box designs. The models were solved by Comsol Multiphysics, Ansys APDL, and Cape Pack. The overall design generation and optimisation were developed with Matlab that controls all these software packages, evaluates the interactions between results, and runs the HGA for box optimisation. The HGA was conducted for 10 generations each with a population of 100 individuals. The optimisation routine successfully found optimum dimensions for the box for the defined conditions with relative short simulation times (about 3 hours per generation). This paper demonstrates how overall optimisation of packaging can be achieved through combining the strengths of multiple simulation software packages.

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