Buckling of Lidded Containers
March 10th, 1986
Report to Curver Packaging Ltd.
S F Bush
Summary
An earlier report (January 1985) examined the failure mechanism of a wide range of Curver containers and established approximate formulae for the limiting loads which could be carried either directly on the lid membrane (stack loading – L1) or on the lid rim (pallet loading – L2). The main source of failure was unclipping of the lid from the container.
The present report is concerned with estimating the limiting loads on the new T design whose lid clip design avoids the failure mechanism of the earlier types. The main failure mode is now found to be by buckling of the container walls, though it is shown (and found experimentally) that unclipping can still occur befoe buckling, for some values of the container and lid dimensions.
The theory now broadly explains the buckling limits and the character of the buckling observed, although it must be emphasised that the results are based on a heavily simplified approach and cannot be pushed too far.