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Pallet C e nt ral • No vem be r-D e cem be r 2 0 25 19 • ISO 8611 Nominal Load test simulation • Allowed number of line loads has been increased from 3 to 4 • Supported deckboard thickness has been increased from 4" to 6" • Page numbers have been added to PDS printouts. Each enhancement addresses a critical gap in pallet engineering today as identified by PDS users, marking a step toward more predictive, reliable, and globally relevant design. "Fasteners are the unsung heroes of pallet performance," says DeLack. "With screws, you can achieve a much higher withdrawal resistance than nails. is is especially important for very heav y skids, where load stability and joint integrity are critical." Let's unpack those features and see how they connect to the future of wood packaging software. 1. Wood Screws: Extending The Pallet Designer's Toolkit Pallet design has long relied on nails as the default fastener, but there are assembly contexts—especially heav y-duty and high-stress skids—where nails reach their limit. Screws bring higher holding power and withdrawal resistance, which can prevent fastener pullout under load. By integrating screw support directly into PDS 6.11, the software lets designers model, analyze, and optimize pallet assemblies that rely on deck screws, lag screws, or washer-head self-drilling screws. at opens the door to larger, stronger, more refined pallet structures, particularly in demanding industrial applications. "Screws won't replace nails across the board and won't be useful in the vast majority of pallet designs" DeLack cautions, " but they can be the right solution in the right context, and PDS 6.11 enhancements allow you to prove that." In practice, this means a pallet designer no longer must approximate screw behavior outside the software or treat screws as an afterthought. You can now explore hybrid assemblies (e.g., nails + screws), trade off material cost versus performance, and more boldly innovate with skid topologies that may have seemed impractical before. Research into the performance of wood screws when used in pallets and heav y skids has been ongoing for the last three years. is required many hundreds of meticulous tests carried out by VA Tech CPULD. "Applied research and development is not a linear, straightforward activity," DeLack notes. "e research takes many twists and turns. When something seems off, we retest and explore avenues not apparent in the beginning of the project. In this case, we learned that even our understanding of nailed joint stiffness could be improved. Wood science is constantly evolving, and we have to get this right. ere are vast numbers of pallet manufacturers, end users, and indeed the whole supply chain that depend on pallets daily." 2. Improved Creep / Deflection Prediction For Block Pallets Over time, under constant load, pallets exhibit "creep" — slow, time-dependent deflection. is is especially tricky to predict for block-style pallets built with "Each enhancement addresses a cri cal gap in pallet engineering today as iden fied by PDS users, marking a step toward more predic ve, reliable, and globally relevant design."

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