Did you know there are several different kinds of corrugated cardboard? You’ve no doubt seen them but just didn’t realize they are variations on the same concept. Knowing the different types could help you make decisions when buying or evaluating corrugated products, especially for shipping and packaging.
What is corrugated cardboard?
Corrugated cardboard (or corrugated fiberboard) consists of at least one flat sheet of heavyduty paper, glued to one wavy sheet of thinner paper. It’s this wavy or fluted sheet that is the corrugation in corrugated cardboard. It’s purpose is to give both strength and cushioning to the cardboard wall.
You can have a single flat sheet glued to a fluted sheet (single face cardboard) or two flat sheets with a fluted sheet between them (singlewall board) or three flat sheets with two fluted sheets between them (doublewall board) or even 4 flat sheets with 3 fluted sheets between them (triplewall board). The more flat and fluted sheets there are, the stronger the cardboard is.
And that’s only the half of it. There are several types of fluting as well.
CFlute corrugated cardboard
CFlute is the most common, with 38 flutes per foot. It was developed as an allpurpose corrugation, and is found in the typical cardboard box.
BFlute corrugated cardboard
BFlute has 47 flutes per foot, and is used for displays and smaller products and boxes. EFlute has 90 flutes per foot and is used for small boxes that need to be folded, such as pizza boxes.
FFlute corrugated cardboard
FFlute has 125 flutes per foot and used for small packages like shoe boxes. It was designed to be economical and use less paper.
What kind of corrugated cardboard does Alta™ Board use?
In the case of our Alta™ Board cardboard lumber, corrugation is used to give it the strength of wooden lumber. This means it can be used in place of lumber for inexpensive and temporary structures such as crates, booths and tables and chairs. Waterproof cardboard is also available as an option, but that’s a topic for another article.
Find out all of the applications and uses that Alta™ Board can serve for your home and business. Anything wood can do, we can do better.