Load stabilization with dunnage air bags

Dunnage air bags- filling voids and stabilizing loads

Load stabilization with dunnage air bags

Let your shipments catch some Zzzzs with dunnage air bags. Well, not really, but they do look like large pillows for your pallets. Instead of sleeping, they fill the void between pallets and stabilize your truck loads. Whether you're shipping full truck or LTL dunnage air bags will help your products get to their destination in one piece.

Dunnage air bags are air-inflated bladders that are made of different materials. They can be paper, poly-woven, vinyl, and plastic materials. They're used to effectively fill the spaces left between pallets when loaded into a trailer. Airbags start deflated, are inserted between pallets, and are then inflated for stabilization. This helps the pallets stay in one place, lessens the amount of movement between pallets, and keeps them upright.

 

dunnage air bagsAir bags are great for the beverage industry

Time for a history lesson

Alright, try to stay awake for this quick lesson in history. Not too long ago, the 1970's actually, dunnage airbags were introduced. They were brought into the industry as a cost effective alternative to securing and stabilizing cargo in sea containers, trucks, rail cars, and other ocean vessels. Dunnage airbags are commonly misunderstood. Just by looking at them you probably assume they are made for void filling and lateral movement. Pro tip: cargo doesn't just move from side to side. When airbags are used correctly, they can prevent movement from front to back, side to side, and up and down. 
air bags stabilizing truck loads

Still awake? Cool, let's go over the benefits of these air bags.

Benefits of Dunnage Airbags
Ahhh, a nicely stabilized truck shipment.

Benefits of using dunnage airbags

  • Ease of use: The compressed air does most of the work for you. Dunnage airbags are easily installed in minutes with little physical labor. It goes both ways too. Deflating is just as easy, and makes unloading truck loads faster than other void fill processes. 
  • Economical: When truck loads contain the same thing, one air bag can brace the entire trailer. Think of the savings if the entire truckload is stabilized from a single dunnage air bag. Less damage, less labor, lower cost of materials. That sound you hear is the little "cha-ching" going off in your mind.
  • Gets rid of cargo movement: A major cause of packaging damage during transit is the shifting of loads. Like we mentioned earlier, pallets and boxes don't just move side to side. Just think of the last time you drove down the street and hit a pot-hole with a piping hot cup of coffee. That hurt didn't it? The coffee didn't just go one direction. Now imagine and entire trailer full of pallets, boxes, and other cargo. That 3-dimensional shift is eliminated with dunnage air bags.

 How to effectively use an air bag 

 So how do you use these things? It's important to note that the best way to secure the truck load is to place the air bags in the back. The last 2-4 pallets are especially crucial. 

70% of damage during transit happens over the rear wheels of the truck.

dunnage airbags on truck
A single air bag can stabilize four similar pallets

Starting with air bags in the bag is a good first step, but there's no one size fits all. It depends on the truck, what kind of delivery you're using, and product type. Everything going to one place? Good, you can use fewer air bags than if your truckload is going to multiple locations. It all depends on the type of transit.

 

Go from this:                                         To this:

 

See also:

AIR DUNNAGE BAGS: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE (2017 UPDATE)

HOW TO PREVENT DAMAGE DURING SHIPPING

CASE STUDY: DUNNAGE AIR BAGS

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To shop our full selection of dunnage air bags click here.

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