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Journal of Vibration and Control

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Study on damping characteristic of ! The Author(s) 2019

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honeycomb paperboard and vibration DOI: 10.1177/1077546319827399
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reduction mechanism of packaging system

Dongmei Wang1 and Rui Yang1,2

Abstract
Honeycomb paperboard has been widely used in transportation and packaging of electronic instruments and furniture
owing to the advantages of light weight, good compression resistance, environmental friendliness, and easy degradation.
As a common cushioning material in transportation, it is worth studying the damping characteristic and vibration
reduction mechanism of honeycomb paperboard. Based on the basic principles of vibration mechanics, the damping
of honeycomb paperboard was proposed. Then the influences of cell length, paperboard thickness, grammage of core
paper, and the honeycomb structures with face sheet or without face sheet on the damping characteristic of honeycomb
paperboard were analyzed. Finally, the vibration reduction mechanism of packaging system with honeycomb paperboard
and block was discussed briefly. The results show that the damping value of honeycomb paperboard decreases with the
increase of cell length and paperboard thickness. The honeycomb paperboard with large grammage of core paper has
high damping value, and yet paper honeycomb core structure without face sheet has poor damping capacity. What’s
more, the vibration reduction capacity of packaging system is influenced by the deformation and damping characteristic
of honeycomb paperboard, among which material damping and structural damping contribute more, honeycomb deform-
ation and air damping contribute less. The weight of block does not affect the damping characteristic of honeycomb
paperboard, but affects the vibration reduction capacity of the whole system.

Keywords
Honeycomb paperboard, material damping, structural damping, air damping, vibration reduction mechanism

are few studies on the damping characteristic of honey-

1. Introduction
Honeycomb paperboard, which is a kind of porous
sandwich cushioning structure composed of hexagonal
honeycomb core layer and two face sheets, has high
specific strength and stiffness, good shock and vibration
resistance, and is widely used in packaging, especially in
transport packaging (Qiao et al., 2008; Kadir et al.,
2016; Suna and Li, 2018). Honeycomb paperboard
has the advantages of anti-vibration, recycling and util-
ization, and reducing waste of resources. It can also
replace wood materials for the packaging of precision
instruments, electronics, household appliances, and fur-
niture (Wang, 2010; Fan et al., 2015). Many scholars
have analyzed the vibration performance of honey-
comb paperboard from vibration transmissibility
experiments (Guo and Zhang, 2004), viscoelastic
model construction (Guillaume et al., 2008; Zhu
et al., 2013), and finite element simulation (Zhang
et al., 2010; Ganesh and Ramana, 2013), but there
comb paperboard and the vibration reduction mechan-
ism of the packaging system. In the basic theory of
packaging dynamics, it is generally recognized that
the viscous damping force is proportional to the vel-
ocity and damping, called linear damping, and in some
cases the damping force is proportional to the square of
the velocity and damping, called dynamic damping
(Peng, 2012). Zhu et al. (2013) considered that the
damping of honeycomb paperboard is a combination
of linear damping and dynamic damping. But more
1
School of Communication, Shenzhen Polytechnic, P.R. China
2
Faculty of Printing, Packaging Engineering and Digital Media Technology,
Xi’an University of Technology, P.R. China
Received: 25 October 2018; accepted: 7 January 2019
Corresponding author:
Dongmei Wang, School of Communication, Shenzhen Polytechnic,
Liuxian Road, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518055, P.R. China.
Email: 394794521@qq.com
2 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

scholars believe that the damping force is not only
affected by the material itself, but also by structural
damping, air friction damping and so on. Hosoya
et al. (2018) evaluated the influence of structure and
fluid on the vibration suppression characteristics of
underwater structures attaching a damping material
surface by reliability factor, amplitude and phase. It
turned out that attaching a damping material decreases
the reliability factor and changes in the phase charac-
teristics, but the vibration suppression of the structure
enhances with the increase of the thickness of damping
material. In the study of the influence of static preload
on the vibration reduction capacity of floating slab
tracks, Li et al. (2018) pointed out that the effectiveness
of vibration mitigation measures is significantly affected
by static preload. As the static preload increases, the
natural frequency of the track system decreases grad-
ually and the peaks of the ground vibration acceler-
ation and vibration energy also reduces. Wesolowski
and Barkanov (2016) researched the influence of air
damping on dynamic parameters of laminated compos-
ite plate, and indicated that the air damping depends on
the material type and size of the plate.
In this paper, a damping formula of honeycomb
paperboard is proposed in Section 2. In Section 3, the
influence of structural factors, material factors and
weight block factors on the damping characteristics of
honeycomb paperboard is presented. In addition, in
order to analyze the effect of air in cell cavity on damp-
ing characteristic, the damping values of honeycomb
paperboard with face sheet and honeycomb structure
without face sheet are compared. The vibration mech-
anism of honeycomb paperboard was discussed in
Section 4. Finally, the conclusions and the later work
are drawn in Section 5.
The experiment data of vibration transmissibility
and resonance frequency for packaging system can be
measured by sine sweep test with reference to ASTM
D3580-95 (2015) ‘‘Standard Test Methods for
Vibration (Vertical Linear Motion) Test of Products.’’
The experiment is carried out at environmental condi-
tion of 23 C and RH 50%, and the test instrument is an
electric vibration testing system (DC-300-3/SV-0404
Suzhou test group Limited by Share Ltd), as shown
in Figure 1. The vibration test bench simulates the ver-
tical excitation of the transport vehicle base and has a
package system thereon, as shown in Figure 2. The
interior product is simplified to a metal block of the
same weight, ignoring the influence of structure. The
honeycomb paperboard is used as cushion pad and
placed on the upper and lower layers of the product.
In order to observe the deformation of honeycomb
paperboard liner during vibration, the outer packing
is removed, and the clamp is used to restrict them
with the way of vertical surface contact, whereas the
horizontal direction is not strictly restricted. The sine
sweep test is adopted in the range 5–500 Hz with a
speed of 1 Oct/min and an excitation acceleration of

2. Estimation for damping value of
honeycomb paperboard
In transport packaging theory, the damping of cushion-
ing material is (Peng, 2012)
Figure 1. Vibration transmissibility test system: 1 – fixture;
2 – honeycomb paperboard; 3 – block (interior product);
4 – acceleration sensor.

c ¼ 2m!n ¼ 4m fn ð1Þ

where m is the weight of product,  is damping ratio,

and fn is resonance frequency of package system. The
damping ratio of honeycomb paperboard can be
deduced from (Guo and Zhang, 2004)

1 1
 ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð2Þ
2 Trm 2  1

where Trm is the maximum vibration transmissibility of

honeycomb paperboard, which is determined by vibra-
tion transmissibility experiments. Figure 2. Simulated packaging system.
Wang and Yang 3

Table 1. The values of main resonance frequency, maximum

vibration transmissibility, and damping.
6 P
Main Maximum
Load resonance vibration
blocks frequency transmissibility Damping Damping
4 Samples (kg) fn (Hz) Trm ratio  c (Ns/m)

AF6/20 12.85 348.9 2.830 0.1888 10,637.0

AF6/20 16.00 341.1 3.023 0.1753 12,018.9
2 AF6/20 20.85 314.6 3.456 0.1511 12,455.3
AF6/20 24.00 311.0 3.609 0.1442 13,523.3
AF8/20 12.85 329.8 3.411 0.1533 8165.8
0 AF8/20 16.00 315.3 4.236 0.1215 7700.4
0 100 200 300 400 500
AF8/20 20.85 283.0 4.364 0.1177 8727.0
f /(Hz)
AF8/20 24.00 270.4 5.041 0.1012 8251.6
AF10/20 12.85 306.2 4.340 0.1184 5853.6
Figure 3. Typical vibration transmissibility–frequency curve. AF10/20 16.00 287.5 4.981 0.1025 5923.0
AF10/20 20.85 261.6 5.461 0.0931 6382.7
AF10/20 24.00 219.0 5.884 0.0862 5694.8
AF10/30 12.85 266.3 5.741 0.0885 3803.8
0.5g. There are four kinds of weight blocks, which are AF10/30 16.00 252.3 6.035 0.0840 4262.3
12.85 kg, 16 kg, 20.85 kg, and 24 kg. The two acceler- AF10/30 20.85 225.1 6.363 0.0796 4693.0
ation sensors monitor the accelerations of the vibration AF10/30 24.00 202.1 6.896 0.0733 4467.1
table (support excitation) and the block (interior prod- AF10/40 12.85 239.3 7.006 0.0721 2786.7
uct) to obtain the vibration transmissibility-frequency AF10/40 16.00 194.4 7.283 0.0693 2708.5
curve of the packaging system. AF10/40 20.85 179.2 7.503 0.0672 3157.6
A typical vibration transmissibility–frequency curve AF10/40 24.00 167.9 7.957 0.0633 3207.7
is shown in Figure 3. There is a key point P in the ANF10/20 20.85 344.6 7.894 0.0639 5765.1
curve, the abscissa of this point is the main resonance ANF10/30 20.85 291.5 9.200 0.0547 4175.9
frequency fn, and the ordinate is the maximum vibra- BF10/20 20.85 317.4 4.483 0.1144 9515.5
tion transmissibility Trm. When vibrating near the res- BF10/30 20.85 284.3 5.200 0.0980 7297.9
onance frequency point, the acceleration response of BNF10/20 20.85 377.4 6.205 0.0817 8074.5
honeycomb paperboard will be magnified, and the BNF10/30 20.85 323.8 7.604 0.0663 5626.6
damping characteristic of honeycomb paperboard is
also most obvious at this point.
In the experiment, we chose two types of samples,
which are honeycomb paperboard with two face sheet maximum vibration transmissibility, and damping
(F) and paper honeycomb core structure without face values of all samples are shown in Table 1.
sheet (NF). The face sheet of honeycomb paperboard is
Kraft paper with a grammage of 230 g/m2. Because the
face sheet of honeycomb paperboard is very thin, the 3. Analysis for damping characteristics
thickness of honeycomb paperboard is roughly the same of honeycomb paperboard
as that of paper honeycomb core structure. Two struc-
tural parameters and one material parameter of hex-
3.1. Influence of cell length on damping
agonal honeycomb are analyzed in this study, which The relationship between cell length and damping of
are the cell length of honeycomb, the thickness of paper- the honeycomb paperboard with thickness of 20 mm
board, and the grammage of core paper. Among them, under different weight blocks is shown in Figure 4. It
the cell length l is 6 mm, 8 mm, and 10 mm respectively, can be seen that the damping of honeycomb paper-
the thickness T is 20 mm, 30 mm, and 40 mm, respect- board decreases with the increase of cell length. In
ively, and the grammage of core paper is 110 g/m2 (A) order to quantitatively analyze the influence of cell
and 140 g/m2 (B). It should be noted that the core paper length on damping, Table 2 compares the reduction
of all samples is corrugated paper, but the grammage is condition of the damping of honeycomb paperboard
different. Number ‘‘AF6/20’’ indicates a honeycomb with increasing cell length under four weight blocks.
paperboard sample with cell length of 6 mm, thickness The results show that the damping reduction rate of
of 20 mm, and for which the core material is corrugated honeycomb paperboard increases rapidly with the
paper of 110 g/m2. The main resonance frequency, decrease of cell length of honeycomb. When the cell
4 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

16 7
12.85kg 12.85kg
16kg
14 16kg 6 20.85kg
20.85kg 24kg
24kg
12

c / ( 10 N· s/m)
c / ( 10 N· s/m)

10

3
3

4
8
3
6

2
4 20 30 40
6 8 10 T/(mm)
l /(mm)

Figure 5. Influence of paperboard thickness on damping under

Figure 4. Influence of cell length on damping under different different blocks.
blocks.

Table 2. The reduction rate of damping for honeycomb Table 3. The variation rate of damping of honeycomb paper-
paperboards with different cell length under four block weights. board with thickness under different blocks.

Damping Damping Damping Damping

Experiment Damping variation variation Experiment Damping variation variation
condition Samples c (Ns/m)
c rate (%) condition Samples c (Ns/m)
c rate (%)

12.85 kg AF6/20 10,637.0 2471.2 23.2 12.85 kg AF10/20 5853.6 2049.8 35.0
AF8/20 8165.8 2312.2 28.3 AF10/30 3803.8 1017.1 26.7
AF10/20 5853.6 AF10/40 2786.7
16.00 kg AF6/20 12,018.9 4318.5 35.9 16.00 kg AF10/20 5923.0 1660.7 28.0
AF8/20 7700.4 1777.4 23.1 AF10/30 4262.3 1553.8 36.5
AF10/20 5923.0 AF10/40 2708.5
20.85 kg AF6/20 12,455.3 3728.3 29.9 20.85 kg AF10/20 6382.7 1689.7 26.5
AF8/20 8727.0 2344.3 26.9 AF10/30 4693.0 1535.4 32.7
AF10/20 6382.7 AF10/40 3157.6
24.00 kg AF6/20 13,523.3 5271.7 39.0 24.00 kg AF10/20 5694.8 1227.7 21.6
AF8/20 8251.6 2556.8 31.0 AF10/30 4467.1 1259.4 28.2
AF10/20 5694.8 AF10/40 3207.7

length changes from 6 mm to 8 mm, the damping
reduces by 5271.7 Ns/m and when it changes
from 8 mm to 10 mm, the damping decreases by
2556.8 Ns/m at most, less than half of the former.
3.2. Influence of thickness on damping
With the increase of paperboard thickness, the damping
of honeycomb paperboard decreases under different
weight blocks, as shown in Figure 5. Table 3 shows
the rate at which the damping of honeycomb paper-
board varies with the thickness of the paperboard
under different blocks. From Table 3 and Figure 5, it
can be illustrated that the damping of honeycomb
paperboard reduces almost linearly with the increase
of paperboard thickness.
3.3. Influence of grammage of core paper on
damping
The influence of grammage of core paper on damping
values of honeycomb paperboards with the thickness of
20 mm and 30 mm, respectively, at 20.85 kg is compared
in Figure 6. It is evident that the damping value of
honeycomb paperboard with a core paper grammage
of 110 g/m2 is much lower than that of honeycomb
Wang and Yang 5

10 10 F10/20
A
B NF10/20
F10/30
8 8 NF10/30

c / ( 10 N· s/m)
c / ( 10 N· s/m)

6 6

3
3

4 4

2 2

0 0
20mm 30mm A B

Figure 6. The damping of honeycomb paperboard with differ- Figure 7. The influence of face sheet on damping at 20.85 kg.
ent grammage of core paper at 20.85 kg.

Table 4. The variation rate of damping for honeycomb paper- Table 5. The variation rate of damping for honeycomb paper-
board with different grammage of core paper at 20.85 kg. board with face sheet and paper honeycomb core structure
without face sheet at 20.85 kg.
Damping Damping
Damping variation variation Damping Damping
Samples c (Ns/m)
c rate (%) Damping variation variation
Samples c (Ns/m)
c rate (%)
AF10/20 6382.7 3132.8 49.1
BF10/20 9515.5 AF10/20 6382.7 617.6 9.7
AF10/30 4693.0 2604.9 55.5 ANF10/20 5765.1
BF10/30 7297.9 AF10/30 4693.0 517.1 11.0
ANF10/30 4175.9
BF10/20 9515.5 1441.0 15.1
paperboard with a core paper grammage of 140 g/m2. BNF10/20 8074.5
As can be seen from Table 4, when the thickness of BF10/30 7297.9 1671.3 22.9
honeycomb paperboard is 20 mm, the effect of gram- BNF10/30 5626.6
mage of core paper on damping is more larger, which
maximum difference of damping is 3132.8 Ns/m for
honeycomb paperboards with core paper grammage
of 110 g/m2 and 140 g/m2. vibration energy. Some of the energy is converted into
deformation energy stored in the honeycomb paper-
3.4. Influence of face sheet of honeycomb board. Some is converted into heat energy dispersed
in the air, but some is transferred to the block. The
paperboard on damping hexagonal cell wall of honeycomb core layer will
The damping characteristics of honeycomb paperboard undergo slight deformation to absorb vibration
with face sheet and paper honeycomb core structure energy during the vibration process, but this deform-
without face sheet at 20.85 kg are compared in ation is very small, so the vibration energy absorbed by
Figure 7 and Table 5. It is found that the honeycomb the deformation of honeycomb paperboard is little. In
paperboard has higher damping performance than the order to reduce the energy transferred to the mass, one
honeycomb core structure without face sheet, and the method is to increase the damping of honeycomb
difference is more pronounced when the core paper paperboard as much as possible for dissipating more
grammage is 140 g/m2. energy; the other is to change the weight of blocks to
reduce the energy transferred to the block. Damping is
4. Study on vibration reduction closely related to the material parameters and structural
parameters of honeycomb paperboard, in which mater-
mechanism of packaging system
ial parameters affect material damping, and corres-
During the transportation process, the packaging ponding structural parameters affect structural
system is stimulated by the base and generated damping. In addition, the damping of honeycomb
6 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)
paperboard is also affected by the air in the honeycomb
cavity.
4.1. Contribution of material damping to the
damping of honeycomb paperboard
The material damping is decided by the composition of
paper fiber, i.e. hemicellulose content and lignin con-
tent in base paper. In Table 4, the variation rate of
damping of honeycomb paperboard has reached
49.1%–55.5% when the grammage of corrugated base
paper changed. Ambient temperature and humidity will
also affect the material damping of honeycomb paper-
board (Caulfield, 1990). The change of ambient tem-
perature will cause thermal expansion and cold
contraction of paper fibers, and the change of humidity
will generate swelling of paper fibers, both of which will
affect the connection of paper fiber molecular chains
and the formation and breaking of hydrogen bonds.
But material damping of honeycomb paperboard will
not influent by the hexagonal honeycomb structure and
weight block once the base paper material and environ-
mental condition are determined.
4.2. Contribution of structural damping to the
damping of honeycomb paperboard
The cell size affects the structural damping and air
damping of honeycomb paperboard. The damping of
honeycomb paperboard decreases with the increase of
cell length and paperboard thickness. What’s more, it is
shown from Tables 2 and 3 that the influence of cell
length on damping is greater than that of paperboard
thickness because the increase of cell length is greatly
reduce the quantity of vibration reduction units.
4.3. Contribution of air damping to the damping
of honeycomb paperboard
Honeycomb paperboard is a closed-cell hexagonal
honeycomb sandwich structure. For the undamaged
honeycomb paperboard, air is enclosed in the honey-
comb cavity. However, the air molecules enclosed in the
honeycomb cavity collide with each other during vibra-
tion, releasing more energy. With the increase of cell
length, the motion space of air in the honeycomb cavity
enlarges, so the collision between air molecules is no
longer intense, the energy dissipation capacity of
honeycomb paperboard would reduce, and the vibra-
tion energy transmitted to the block will grow. Keeping
the cell length of honeycomb is a constant, the available
motion space of air molecules rises as the increase of
thickness paperboard, and air damping would fall. In
Figure 7, the damping value of honeycomb core struc-
ture without face sheet is lower than that of honeycomb
paperboard, which also confirms that air damping con-
tributes to the damping characteristic of honeycomb
paperboard. But its contribution is less compared
with material damping and structural damping.
4.4. Contribution of weight blocks to the vibration
reduction capacity of system
As illustrated in Figures 4 and 5, the influence of block
on the damping of honeycomb paperboard is not obvi-
ous, because damping is an inherent property of honey-
comb paperboard, it does not change with the weight
block. But the energy of whole system is influenced by
weight block. It can be seen from Table 1 that the
heavier the block, the greater the maximum vibration
transmissibility of the system, that is to say, more
energy is transferred to the block, and the vibration
reduction capacity of the system is weakened.
5. Conclusions
Based on the basic principles of vibration mechanics,
the damping values of honeycomb paperboard under
different conditions were calculated, and the influence
of honeycomb cell length, paperboard thickness and
core paper grammage on damping of honeycomb
paperboard was analyzed. The contribution of damp-
ing to the vibration reduction capacity of the system
was analyzed from three aspects: material damping,
structural damping and air damping. In order to ana-
lyze the influence of air in the cell cavity on the damp-
ing characteristic of honeycomb paperboard, the
damping value of paper honeycomb core structure
without face sheet was compared with that of honey-
comb paperboard. The conclusions are as follows:
(1) The vibration energy reduction capacity of honey-
comb paperboard is mainly contributed by damp-
ing. The structural damping of honeycomb
paperboard is affected by honeycomb structural
parameters, which decreases with the increase of
cell length and paperboard thickness. Among
them, cell length has a more significant effect on
damping, because the number of hexagonal damp-
ing structure decreases greatly with the increase of
cell length.
(2) The grammage of core paper affects the material
damping of honeycomb paperboard, because it
changes the fiber composition of base paper.
(3) The weight of block does not affect the damping
performance of honeycomb paperboard, but affects
the energy transferred to the block.
(4) Air damping has small effect on the damping char-
acteristics of honeycomb paperboard, but it cannot
be directly ignored.
Wang and Yang
Considering the strong water absorption of honey-
comb paperboard, we will compare the influence of
environmental temperature and humidity on the damp-
ing characteristics of honeycomb paperboard in the
later period. In addition, we will seek the quantitative
analysis method of vibration energy for honeycomb
paperboard as far as possible for further research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (grant number 51675349).
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