Cellular Tray Walls for Stacking Strength
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Solution Overview
Problem
Paperboard containers with low front walls for product display suffer from poor stacking strength, limiting the number of trays that can be stacked and the type and weight of products they can hold, and are laborious to assemble due to multiple folding requirements.
Innovation Solution
A tray design featuring cellular back and side walls with multilayered corner reinforcing structures, comprising inner and outer panels with gaps, and a shorter front wall for improved visibility, allowing for enhanced stacking strength and reduced material thickness while maintaining load-bearing capacity, using a single piece corrugated paperboard blank with corrugations oriented vertically for increased strength.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If trays are made with low front walls for product display, then customer visibility and product accessibility are improved, but stacking strength deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The tray walls are segmented into cellular structures with multiple compartments, creating a honeycomb-like pattern that distributes loads across multiple cells. This segmentation allows the low front wall design to maintain display functionality while the cellular structure provides enhanced stacking strength through load distribution across numerous small structural units.
Solution Approach 2:
The tray utilizes composite paperboard construction combining different layers and materials with varying properties. The cellular walls incorporate multiple material layers that work together to provide both the low-profile display geometry and the structural strength needed for stacking, with each layer contributing specific mechanical properties to the overall composite structure.
2Strength
If thicker paperboard material is used to improve stacking strength, then load-bearing capacity is improved, but material cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using uniformly thick material throughout the tray, the design segments the wall structure into cellular compartments. This segmentation allows thinner material to be used overall while the cellular geometry provides structural reinforcement, reducing material consumption while maintaining or improving stacking strength through the efficient load-distributing cellular architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the geometric parameters of the wall structure from solid to cellular configuration. By modifying the structural geometry rather than simply increasing material thickness, the design achieves enhanced stacking strength through the cellular pattern's load-distributing properties while using less material, thereby reducing cost.
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple folding actions are required to erect walls, then assembly precision is improved, but labor time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The tray design merges multiple wall-erecting folding actions into a single integrated folding operation. The cellular structure and wall panels are configured so that one folding action simultaneously positions multiple wall sections and erects the cellular compartments, reducing the number of discrete assembly steps while maintaining the precision needed for proper wall alignment and structural integrity.
Data Source
AI summary
A tray has a back wall, at least two side walls, a front wall, and a bottom. The side walls have an inner side wall panel and an outer side wall panel, and a gap between the inner and outer side wall panels. The back wall has an outer back wall panel and an inner back wall panel, and a gap provided between the inner back wall panel and the outer back wall panel. The inner back wall panel has first and second side edges, a top edge, and a bottom edge. A first of the inner side wall panels has a back edge, a front edge, a top edge, and a bottom edge. A multilayered corner reinforcing structure couples the back edge of the first inner side wall panel to the first side edge of the inner back wall panel at a first corner of the tray.