Plastic containers for food or for industrial applications must support a minimum top load charge for stacking but must also be as light (thin) as possible to reduce material.

A structural Finite Element Analysis was performed on several design iterations of a container to obtain the best trade off between top load resistance and weight.

Non-linear material definition was used for the polymer and non-linear solver (MSC MARC) were used to accurately predict the buckling point and post bucking behavior.

Key Benefits  

• Rapidity of the results
• Minimizing weight without physical prototypes
• Optimal material thickness to meet top-load specification