Measurement of Wood Pallet Performance Subjected to Uniform Loading in Racked, Fork Tine, and Floor Stacked Support Conditions

Wood pallets are heavily used throughout the United States and the World to transport, store, and protect goods. During a lifecycle, pallets typically experience various stresses from warehouse storage racks, materials handling equipment, and floor stacking situations. The components within the pallet interact to withstand load and impact forces. Every year product damage and human injury/death result from improperly designed pallets, non-reliable packaging systems, and careless materials handling methods. In use wood pallets are exposed to a variety of loads and support conditions. This research investigates the effect of different pallet designs and support conditions on pallet stiffness. Uniform loads were applied to pallet designs containing thick or thin components and three, four, or five non-notched and notched stringers. The pallets were supported using racked across the length, racked across the width, fork truck tine, and floor stack support conditions. Structural analysis was used to determine the test loads for each pallet bending test. Pallet deflections were measured in specific locations for each bending test. Pallet test results indicated that heavy duty pallets are 6.5 times stiffer than light duty pallets tested in the racked across width (RAW) support condition. Non-notched pallets tested are 51% stiffer than notched pallets in the racked across length (RAL) support condition. Test results also indicated that a wider fork tine support span decreases average pallet stiffness by 29% and 49% for 4 and 5 stringer pallets, compared to 3 stringer. The heavy duty pallets tested are, on average, 48.3% stiffer than light duty pallets in the fork tine support condition. For the notched fork tine support condition, the average pallet stiffness decreased by 29% and 3% for four and five stringer pallets, compared to three stringer. Pallet joints were tested to measure joint stiffness. Joint rotation tests were conducted to determine rotation modulus and joint withdrawal tests were conducted to determine joint withdrawal stiffness. The joint stiffness measurements were used as spring constants in structural analysis based on semi-rigid joint performance. Heavy duty pallet joints were approximately half as stiff (6758 in-lbs/radian) in rotation as light duty pallet joints (12907 in-lbs/radian). Light duty pallet joints were less stiff (44008 lbs/in) in withdrawal than heavy duty pallet joints (57823 in/lbs). The results from this research were used to compare with results from ANSYS (Version 11) structural model estimates. The average predicted error for all pallet bending tests was 13% (heavy duty) and 3% (light duty).

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Wood Science and Forest Products

Department dc:contributor.department

Wood Science and Forest Products

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• White, Braden Spencer

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Loferski, Joseph R.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Thangjitham, Surot
• Hindman, Daniel P.

• nail joint stiffness
• wood pallets
• testing strength connections

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-06242008-143421

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/33730