Rise in Cardboard Production after COVID Pandemic rising the need of Edge Crush Test

A notification on your phone "package delivered" has been a common sight nowadays. With 3 back to back COVID pandemics and lockdown boosted online shopping and saw an immediate rise in deliveries.

And all credit goes to the cardboard box which is the unsung hero of widespread deliveries of goods. These cardboard boxes are delivering your wish list goodies to your doorstep ensuring the product inside reaches you safe and sound.                    

Not only household stuffs, but these cardboard boxes also made it possible for all the medical consumables to get delivered house to house. All the requirements patients required during COVID times was possible with this sturdy packing.

Rising demand asks for quality cardboard production  

High-demand production in cardboard boxes used in delivery brought a surge in high-quality cardboards.

With new and modified types of production process and shipping standards, the testing methods which we used to evaluate a cardboard's strength has drastically changed too. Nowadays shipping is done through boxes getting delivered on pallets, distributing goods worldwide.

Edge Crush Test defining the quality factors for a cardboard box

Edge Crush Test is performed to test the resistance strength of cardboard edge against vertical crushing load. As the majority of our deliveries are dependent on corrugated or plain cardboard boxes, it’s important that the quality of the material they are made of that is the cardboard sheets is enough to take the load of stacking and long transportations and jerks. Especially in a country like India, where the road conditions are enemy to sensitive or poor quality products during their deliveries.

Pacorr, a leading name in quality testing of packaging materials, bring Edge Crush Tester (ECT), the digital model. Compact, sturdy, and high-standard equipment allow the user to test the resistance against the crushing strength of the cross-sectional specimen of the material.

The machine puts a vertical load on the specimen till the point it fails and gets deflected. That point at which it changes its constitutional shape under pressure is recorded in digital mode and the values come in the amount of force. This value is used to compare different material specimens to judge the quality. The more the force value, more the material can take and the higher is the quality.

The equipment comes with motion-based compression plates which are under the total control of the user. They can be controlled to apply force on the specimen. A load cell is installed on the machine to ensure a uniform amount of force is applied to every single inch of the specimen which further promises accuracy in the results.

Once the user gets the values they can calculate the edge crush test value using a simple formula: Compression Strength = k.ECT x T x Z

In the formula:

• k is constant
• ECT is the edge crush test value
• T is the thickness of the board that is tested
• Z is the perimeter of the board

By evaluating the value, the manufacturers of packaging cardboard can know that how their material will perform in the market and accordingly quote prices.