Many people in the packaging industry will understand how to produce strong and reliable cardboard boxes this is all down to one machine - the corrugator machine. This machine may sound hard to fathom, but in reality it’s quite simple. The corrugator machine is employed in the corrugated board industry to form and strengthen cardboard for packing material. To find out more about how this machine works — and why it is so important — we have to take another step on the cosmic distance ladder.
The corrugator is the largest and most expensive machine used in cardboard manufacturing. It’s primary function is to feed flat sheets of paper and form them into corrugated cardboard. That is to say it glues a flat sheet of paper to a wavy sheet of paper. The undulating piece is what adds the ridges and valleys that make cardboard stout and resilient.
We use the corrugator machine to make the cardboard boxes that we use every day, but without the machine, it would be quite challenging! This machine bends and shapes the cardboard so that it can protect what is inside. Chipboard without sturdy boxes and boxes would mean that our groceries, electronics, and miscellaneous goods could get crushed in transit.
A series of rollers in the corrugator machine feeds the flat and waivy sheets of paper through heated plates. This film heats up the glue that holds the two sheets of paper together. As the sheets pass through the machine, they are pressed together to make what we know as corrugated cardboard.
A Corrugator Machine A corrugator machine consists of a series of rolls and is used to make corrugated cardboard. Those parts are the splicer, which connects flat and wavy sheets of paper; the single facer, which adds glue to the sheets; and the double backer, which adds a third layer of paper on top to make the cardboard even stronger.
When it works, the corrugator machine is awesome. It feeds in flat sheets of paper at one end and spits out corrugated cardboard at the other. It does so very quickly and efficiently, thanks to the brilliant design of the machine’s parts. Without a corrguator machine, a process that would be much slower would have to be followed to make cardboard boxes and that could slow the shipping process and cost the companies more money.
The latest advancements in the technology of this machine include: automatic controls that change the machine’s setting as that is happening in real time; better heating systems that ensure that the glue spreads evenly; and more sophisticated monitoring systems that monitor how the machine is working and alert operators in case there is a problem.