Finite Element and Experimental Investigation on the Effect of Repetitive Shock in Corrugated Cardboard Packaging

The primary concern of the current study is estimating the repetitive shock induced damages leading to cumulative fatigue on corrugated cardboard boxes experimentally and numerically. Repetitive shock tests were performed on boxes using a vibration table to construct a Damage Boundary Curve (DBC). To computationally determine this curve, a finite element approach is proposed using an elastoplastic homogenization model for corrugated cardboard. The proposed model was implemented in the finite element software ABAQUS. Thanks to adopted model simplifications, a box can be easily and reliably modelled as a homogenized structure. A calibration method is used to compute a set of effective parameters in homogenized model in order to keep its behavior qualitatively and quantitatively close to the response of a full structural model. For verification, the identified model is used to simulate the box compression test. To replicate the experimental tests, simulations of successive repetitive shock pulses are carried with the proposed model for oligocyclique and limited endurance fatigue. To reduce computational costs, we propose a simple method for unlimited endurance fatigue by extrapolating a trend line after some training cycles. The proposed method shows good agreement with experimental results.