Abstract

With the improvement of living standards, consumers’ demands for refrigerator quality are increasing, making refrigerator packaging protection particularly important. Currently, refrigerator packaging mainly includes protection for the top, bottom, and body. When selecting packaging materials, it is essential to adhere to good cushioning properties, moisture resistance, and ease of processing while focusing on the development of new materials and optimizing packaging design.

Keywords: Buffer packaging, protection, optimized design

1. Introduction

As living standards improve, refrigerators have entered thousands of households. At the same time, consumers’ requirements for refrigerators are becoming higher, necessitating the assurance of quality alongside quality assurance. Therefore, the protection of refrigerators during transportation is particularly important. The transportation process of refrigerators is affected by multiple factors, including distance, road conditions, transshipment, and human factors, which can easily have a significant impact on the refrigerators. Based on this situation, adopting reasonable packaging methods can reduce the damage rate of refrigerators, ensuring their quality even under relatively harsh environmental conditions. The buffer packaging of refrigerators primarily addresses the issues of vibration, friction, and impact caused by external forces during transportation and unloading. Buffer packaging can absorb 60%-70% of harmful damage, thereby protecting the refrigerator. As competition in the refrigerator industry intensifies, the adoption of new materials, changes in packaging structure design, and reduction of packaging costs have become hot topics of concern. Considering the intended use and relevant factors, the buffer packaging for refrigerator products should focus on the following points:

1. The material should have good cushioning performance, strong impact resistance, and protection capabilities to effectively reduce the impact, vibration, and damage caused by external pressure on the product.
2. The material should have good moisture resistance to avoid deformation from absorbing moisture in humid environments, leading to a decrease in protective performance and even adverse effects on the box body.
3. The material should possess a certain degree of toughness, able to withstand a certain level of bending without easily breaking or shattering under external force.
4. The material should have minimal creep and permanent deformation.
5. The material should not cause scratches or abrasions to the refrigerator surface when in contact with it.
6. The material should not migrate when in contact with the refrigerator product surface.
7. The material should be easy to shape, process, and use.
8. The material should have a certain degree of versatility.
9. The material should be environmentally friendly, causing minimal pollution to the environment.
10. The material should be recyclable.

When designing buffer packaging for refrigerator products, the above factors and the current technical level of suppliers should be comprehensively considered.

2. Refrigerator Protection

2.1 Bottom Protection of Refrigerators

The buffer packaging of refrigerator products is mainly divided into bottom protection, body protection, and top protection. Bottom protection primarily relies on the cushioning performance of the chassis components to protect the refrigerator product and prevent damage to the refrigerator body during transportation. The chassis components focus on two aspects of protection: front foot protection and rear compressor protection. Typically, a void design is used to reduce the reaction force generated when the refrigerator falls. Currently, the chassis components mainly consist of bottom pads and chassis, which work together. Common materials used for the chassis include corrugated cardboard and calcium plastic. Bottom pads usually use expanded polystyrene (EPS), with an expansion ratio of 30-40 times. EPS has good cushioning performance, is easy to shape, and is low-cost. When making bottom pads, the appropriate thickness should be chosen based on the weight of the refrigerator body. If the thickness exceeds a certain range, hollowing out is required to prevent the foam parts from expanding and cracking, which would affect the protective performance of the chassis components. Currently, with the increasing awareness of environmental protection, new types of chassis component structures are continuously being developed, such as paper square tube chassis components. These mainly use paper square tubes and corrugated cardboard composites, directly fixing EPS foam to the chassis. This new integrated chassis component structure reduces the amount of EPS used, is environmentally friendly, and simultaneously enhances the protective performance of the chassis components.

2.2 Body Protection of Refrigerators

The body is mainly protected using side pads or corner protectors. Side pads have a high degree of universality, mainly using EPS with a density of around 20kg/m³. Side pads are primarily used to protect the sides of the refrigerator, preventing damage from clamping during loading and unloading. Corner protectors are usually made of EPS material and are divided into front and rear corner protectors, placed at the four corners of the refrigerator. Corner protectors and side pads made from EPS have certain cushioning properties and are mold-resistant and moisture-resistant, thus protecting the refrigerator body. However, EPS also has certain drawbacks, such as poor toughness and easy brittleness, which has led to the emergence of paper corner protectors. Typical examples of paper corner protectors include honeycomb corner protectors and paper corner protectors. Honeycomb corner protectors mainly consist of honeycomb cardboard and EPE pearl cotton combined with pressure-sensitive hot melt adhesive, with the EPE pearl cotton side in contact with the body to prevent scratches on the door. Honeycomb corner protectors are primarily used for refrigerators with door handles. Currently, paper corner protectors are also widely used. Paper corner protectors are made from multiple layers of kraft paper, compressed using a shaping machine, and have characteristics such as high strength and good protective performance. The inner layer is also combined with pearl cotton to prevent scratches on the body. Paper corner protectors fit snugly against the four corners of the refrigerator to prevent damage to the corners. Moreover, during the design process, paper corner protectors are generally used in conjunction with bottom pads and top pads for vertical support, significantly enhancing the overall packaging performance. During use, paper corner protectors are generally used in conjunction with side pads to better protect the refrigerator body and reduce the packaging damage rate during circulation.

3. Top and Bottom Protection of Refrigerators

Top protection prevents damage such as scratches and dents on the refrigerator during transportation, effectively addressing issues caused by human stepping during loading. The top of the refrigerator is a vulnerable area, primarily protected using EPS, which has good cushioning effects and can effectively block external impacts and human damage. The density of top pads is generally selected to be around 20-25kg/m³, with local voids in the middle to reduce the amount of EPS used. Additionally, the four corners can also undergo void treatment to facilitate matching with cartons. Currently, some companies have changed the structure of the top pads to provide protection for the left and right sides of the refrigerator top, prohibiting human stepping, thereby saving packaging costs and being environmentally friendly. At present, as competition in the home appliance industry intensifies, cost issues are also a key factor restricting enterprise development. Companies are gradually researching new packaging structures and developing new packaging materials to reduce costs. At the same time, optimizing product packaging design has gradually become a hot topic in the packaging industry. Given the complex environment during transportation, the requirements for packaging design are quite strict, which poses a significant challenge for designers in the packaging industry.