Corrugated Cardboard



Background

Most items at your favorite supermarket, discount store, or shopping mall were safely delivered in boxes made of corrugated cardboard, and many are displayed in the same boxes, which were manufactured so they could be opened and used for this purpose. Other items may arrive in their own corrugated or uncorrugated paperboard boxes. Because corrugated cardboard is such a versatile packaging material, millions of tons are used each year to protect and display products. During 1992, more than 25 million tons of corrugated cardboard were produced in the United States. Another 6 million tons of uncorrugated boxboard or paperboard were also produced for use in folding cartons.

Corrugated cardboard is a stiff, strong, and light-weight material made up of three layers of brown kraft paper. In 1884, Swedish chemist, Carl F. Dahl, developed a process for pulping wood chips into a strong paper that resists tearing, splitting, and bursting. He named it the kraft process because it produces a strong paper that resists tearing, splitting, and bursting.

From the paper mill, rolls of kraft paper are transported to a corrugating, or converting, plant. At the plant, layers of kraft paper are crimped and glued to form corrugated cardboard, which is then cut, printed, folded, and glued to make boxes. At the beginning of this process, kraft rolls from the paper mill are loaded into a huge machine called a corrugator. A typical corrugator is as long as a football field—300 feet (91.44 meters). Some rolls of kraft paper are used as the corrugating medium, and others are used as liners, the layers of kraft paper glued on each side of the medium. After the corrugator has heated, glued, and pressed the kraft paper to form corrugated cardboard, the continuous sheet of cardboard is cut into wide box blanks that then go to other machines for printing, cutting, and gluing. Finally, batches of finished boxes are banded together for shipping to the food processor, toy maker, automobile parts distributor, or any of the thousands of businesses that depend on corrugated cardboard packaging.

Raw Materials

Fast-growing pine trees provide the primary raw material used to make corrugated cardboard. The largest packaging companies own thousands of acres of land where trees are matured, harvested, and replaced with seedlings. After the trees are harvested, they are stripped of their limbs; only the trunks will be shipped by truck to a pulp mill. The largest packaging companies also own the mills where trees are converted to kraft paper. At the mill, the harvested tree trunks are subjected to the kraft process, also known as the sulfate process because of the chemicals used to break down wood chips into fibrous pulp. After pulping and other processing, the fibers are sent directly to the paper machine where they are formed, pressed, dried, and rolled into the wide, heavy rolls of kraft paper sent to corrugating plants to be made into cardboard.

At the corrugating plant, only a few other raw materials are needed to make a finished box. Corn starch glue is used to bond the corrugated medium to the liner sheets. Because so much glue is used, rail cars or large tanker trucks deliver it as a dry powder that will be stored in huge silos at the corrugating plant until it is needed. Drawn from the silo, the dry corn starch is mixed with water and other chemicals and pumped into the corrugator to be spread on the corrugated medium as the layers of liner are added. Other raw materials are used to finish the corrugated cardboard after production. Waxes made from paraffin or vegetable oils can be applied to make a water- or grease-resistant container for food products. Brightly colored inks are also applied to create bold graphic designs for self-supporting displays featuring product name, information, and company name and logo. Teams of salespeople and designers work together to create the manufacturing and printing patterns, called dies, that are used to cut and print a specific box design. The dies are created in a pattern shop and transferred to the rotary die-cutting equipment and printers that finish the box blanks.

Design

Kraft paper has been manufactured since 1906. Since then, pulp processing, paper making, and corrugating operations have been developed to a high state of efficiency and productivity. Today, in the corrugated cardboard industry, designers are creating innovative containers that require four-color printing and complex die-cutting. These innovative containers are designed with sophisticated software such as computer-aided design (CAD) programs, allowing a packaging designer to brainstorm different package designs before manufacturing begins. A designer using a CAD program can call up and modify different designs that have been stored in a computer design library. Thus, existing packages can generate new designs. Many retail stores use such light, strong, and colorful containers directly, as point-of-purchase displays.

The Manufacturing
Process

Pulping the pine chips

Making kraft paper

Shipping and storing the kraft paper

Corrugating the cardboard

Forming the blanks into boxes

Quality Control

Quality control begins with the suppliers of the kraft paper used to make corrugated cardboard. Kraft paper must be smooth and strong. After the paper passes through the corrugator and is made into box blanks, individual blanks are pulled from a stack and tested. The Cobb test measures moisture in the liner and medium. Glue strength, bursting strength, compression, and highly accurate dimensional tests determine the quality of the manufacturing process. A warp test determines the flatness of the box blank, insuring that each blank will travel smoothly through the flexo machines. As skilled workers run batches of box blanks through the flexo machines, individual boxes are pulled and inspected. Trimming, cutting, and scoring must be correct. No damage to the cardboard is allowed. Also, the different layers of colored ink used in color printing must be perfectly aligned.

The Future

Future corrugated containers will be manufactured using kraft paper produced from recycled packaging rather than trees. Recycling and other environmentally friendly processes will continue to grow in importance in the future of corrugated cardboard. Today, inks based on soybean oil and biodegradable waxes and other coatings are beginning to be used in container manufacturing. Leading packaging companies are already operating paper mills that make fresh, clean kraft paper by de-inking and pulping used containers.

Where To Learn More

Books

Bessen, A. Howard. Design & Production of Corrugated Packaging & Displays. Jelmar Publishing Company, Inc., 1991.

The Corrugated & Paperboard Container Industry: An Analysis of Current Markets & Prospects for Future Growth. Business Trend Analysts, Inc., 1991.

Maltenfort, George G. Corrugated Shipping Containers: An Engineering Approach. Jelmar Publishing Company, Inc., 1988.

Rohde, Elliot S. Producing Corrugated Containers Profitably. Jelmar Publishing Company, Inc., 1993.

Kline, James E. Paper And Paperboard: Manufacturing and Converting Fundamentals, 1991.

Periodicals

Carey, Kevin. "The Science of Diecutter Makeready." Boxboard Containers. March, 1993.

"Engineers Claim Cardboard Cup," Design News. October 6, 1986, p. 51.

"Industry Statistics," Paperboard Packaging. March, 1993, p. 16.

Tappi [Technical Association for the Pulp and Paper Industries] Journal.

Robert C. Miller



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User Contributions:

1
omar
May 11, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
Hi, I want to know how many meters do I need of medium to make 10 meters of single face?

I need to know the proportion between linner and medium
Thanks.
2
Sumito Ahuja
Apr 19, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
Where can I get the following information for corrugated cardboard:
• Density:
• Durability:
• Solubility:
• Flow rate:
• Friction:
• Weight:

Thanks.
3
Sharon Scott
Mar 8, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
Yes, I was thinking and had a question...I would like to know how do you know if it is safe to let you pet birds have a cardboard box to play with and chew on....I Love my birds and I have seen many bird people let their birds have boxes to chew on....I have not done that because I don't know how safe the cardboards are.... Thanks, Sharon
4
Yogesh
Aug 24, 2009 @ 1:01 am
Dear Yogesh,
A basic idea on how cardboard is made. The machinery can be thought of later on.
5
Nov 23, 2010 @ 2:14 pm
I want to start a sheet plant. Does anybody know how? how i get my clients?
6
Nov 20, 2011 @ 12:00 am
I wanted to know the weight of boxes/tray/seperator/partation how to calculate the weight of these item please describe so that we are able to put sizes and it will help us for costing.
7
rose
Aug 14, 2014 @ 2:14 pm
excellent info. can you tell me what WTK and BR stand for when talking about liner boards
8
Anthony
Dec 11, 2017 @ 4:16 pm
Hi. These days, is safe to assume that most, if not all brown cardboard boxes are not just recyclable but also compostable? Meaning, is it generally safe to compost the entirety of the box: cardboard, the ink that's printed on it, and most importantly, the glue that is used to adhere the sides of the box together. My understanding is that plain brown cardboard is cellulose and that the ink used for print is some sort of vegetable dye, or some other natural substance. But, is the glue ALSO compostable? Is the glue a starch of some sort; or other natural substance or not? I'm in the U.S. Who regulates the manufacture of cardboard boxes in the U.S.? Thanks.
9
JEFF YANG
Oct 16, 2020 @ 3:15 pm
Besides of trees and recycled, are there any other raw materials can be used for making kraft paper?

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Corrugated Cardboard Production Line