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Dr. Duane Priddy, Plastic Expert Group

Plastic five-gallon pails, with handles attached, are used extensively. Our client manufactures these pails and was experiencing occasional failure at the point of attachment of the handle to the side of the pail. Our experts evaluated the current design and performed computer modeling using finite element analysis (FEA) to redesign the handle and eliminate the failures.

Point of stress concentration
Figure 1. The FEA analysis shows the stress concentration in the current design.
The handle attachment was redesigned to distribute the stress and eliminate failure.
Figure 2. The handle attachment was redesigned to distribute the stress and eliminate failure.