Design and Analysis of Packaging Boxes for Flat Panel Displays

A methodology of designing the packaging box based on the topology optimization technique is proposed. The packaging box is designed not only to protect the fragile liquid crystal display from damage but also take up a volume as small as possible in order to reduce the transport cost. In contrast to the traditional approach which minimizes the acceleration and/or the maximal stress of the panel contained in the packaging box, the proposed objective is to minimize simultaneously the predesignated natural frequency and the mean compliance of a packaging box subjected to a volume constraint. An algorithm which integrates the finite element software ANSYS used as the structural analysis tool, the optimization module based on the sequential linear programming, and a topology module, is developed to achieve the crashworthiness design of packaging box. The material properties as well as the finite element model of a packaging box are tested and validated experimentally. The packaging box after topology optimization is evaluated numerically by drop test simulations in terms of acceleration experienced by the panel and volume reduction of packaging box. For the specific example demonstrated, results show that an optimal layout of the packaging box not only has a smaller volume, 14.85% less than the packaging box used nowadays, but also reduce the maximal acceleration experienced by the panel by 8.9%.