Yu Yang Huang Qiu's Research

Biography:

Yu Yang is a new graduate student in Fall 2019. He grew up in Costa Rica; his parents moved there from mainland China. He has one brother and one sister and likes to play piano, cook, listen to music, and play video games during his free time. He completed a short internship at Virginia Tech during his undergraduate degree and decided to apply to graduate school here becuase he felt our Packaging Program was a good opportunity to apply, simultaneously, the knowledge and experiences gained through his undergraduate degree in Industrial/Mechanical Engineering.

Yu Yang hopes to one day work with a large industry company in helping them to improve their supply chains. He expects his graduate education to help improve his managerial skills and teach him new standards and abilities that will help him reach that future career goal. So far he already feels like he has gained skills in time management and teamwork through his graduate education. 

Yu Yang's project will help him discover a maximum deflection limit for pallets undergoing forklift truck handling. This information will let the industry better understand the load capacity of pallets in this support condition. His results will be a correlation between static and dynamic pallet deflection and provide more accurate deflection limits based on real-life data that will increase the safety of pallets and alow designers to optimize the load capacity of pallets.

Research Summary:

The most common handling method for pallets are by industrial forklift trucks. When pallets are handled by these trucks, the pallet deflects (bends) due to the weight of the unit load it’s carrying. Usually, the maximum deflection occurs at the pallet’s outside edges and corners; however, the exact amount of deflection that occurs and the effect of this deflection on the load capacity of the pallet has not been studied before. Understanding how pallets' deflection while in a forklift support condition affects the strength and stability of the unit load, and, from this, deriving industry accepted deflection limits will help the industry to design safer, more cost-effective pallets.