Influence of the Surface Characteristics of Corrugated Cardboard on the Quality of Inkjet Printing

This paper investigates the quality of inkjet printing on corrugated cardboard with various characteristics such as the presence of surface coating, the type of cardboard structure, the corrugated layer profile, and the corrugated cardboard height. The color characteristics of the corrugated board surface of studied samples were analyzed in the CIE Lab system; the value of the discrepancy in the shade of white was established when compared with the reference values of the ISO 12647 standard. During the study, the main criteria for assessing the quality of color reproduction of inkjet imprints were analyzed: an indicator of the general contrast level (K), the value of color differences for the basic tone shades (ΔE), and the volume of the body color coverage (ΔE2). It was found that when printing on various types of corrugated cardboard, there is a general decrease in the overall contrast value. The actual level of color differences is ΔE=10...45 and exceeds the permissible standards for the color reproduction quality. This adversely affects the reproduction of different color tones in the printed image. In general, the quality of color reproduction differs for the test samples of corrugated cardboard in terms of the magnitude of the spread in the values of color distortions on the tone shades. The influence of the main characteristics of the investigated samples of corrugated cardboard on the quality indicators of inkjet printing has been analyzed. In particular, a significant influence of the index of color characteristics of the surface of corrugated cardboard L* and the type of corrugated board structure on the quality of color reproduction has been established. The study results reported here could make it possible to reasonably approach the selection of the corrugated board structure that is optimal in composition, increase the productivity of the technological process for manufacturing containers, and stabilize the quality of printing on corrugated cardboar