Design and Analysis of the Semi-Automatic Carton Blank Cutting Machine for Variable Size Boxes

Abstract

Packaging is a major factor in the production and distribution of any products, goods and it is itself a fast-growing industry. Authentic and economical packaging is much needed in this era for storage, transportation and supply until the product is handed over to the end customer. In this competitive world, because of the customers’ desire to purchase a more nicely packed product, it is required that bigger shops should have the packaging machinery, which is capable of making blanks of paperboard of different sizes for variable size boxes as the paperboard is one of the most widely used materials in the packaging, since it can be converted from a flat blank into a box easily. In the standard packaging concept, the boxes are of fix size, no matter what the size of the product is. So even for the small product, there is more material use, thus more transportation cost because of bigger packing, more filler material required to be provided for protection. Here, the idea is to conceptualize the machine that is capable enough to make different sizes of blanks for different size of boxes with some dimensional modification in that so to reduce raw material usage, transportation cost, filler material requirement and ultimately helps in driving the packaging industry towards lighter, reliable and recyclable solutions. The aim of the present work is to conceptualize design for variable carton blanking machine to produce boxes. To achieve this objective, three different concepts are conceptualized considering the standard design procedure for four different standard sizes boxes which can be used in any bakery shops, E-commerce, sweet shops, cosmetic industry etc. All the three concepts are modeled in the Solidworks design software and out of which the most appropriate concept is chosen as per the required functionality after idea comparison. The detailed design is been carried out on chosen concept using standard design procedure by using the standard size parts and appropriate material selection. For the justification of the conceptual detailed design, FEA tools are applied on the critical components of the machine for checking them against the failure for different loading conditions also, the size reduction and alternative material can be selected for too safe design. After applying FEA tools on design, the manufacturing drawing are created of the major machine components.