eli5: Why are soup/food cans so much more robust than beverage cans, even though both cans are made to withstand the pressure of being stacked vertically for shipping and storage?

Question

Crushing a soda can is easy, crushing a soup can is way harder. The soup cans are also often corrugated. What explains the difference?

In: 3794

Answer 1

I am a food can manufacturer and the biggest structural difference other than one being steel and one being aluminum is the “corrugated” sidewalls (we call them beads) that food cans have. The beads are there to help support the can during the cooking process where there is an enormous amount of lateral pressure from shrinking and expanding put on the can. Most food cans can also withstand vertical forces of at least half a ton, which helps in the stacking and storage aspect. There is actually a fine line in how deep the beads are because if they’re too deep you lose the axial (vertical) strength, but, if they aren’t deep enough the cans will be crushed or explode during the cooking process.

I can’t say as much about aluminum beverage cans as I’ve never been a part of their manufacturing process though. The main difference is the material used and how thick it is, beverage cans end up as very thin aluminum whereas most food cans are made with at least a .007” steel/tin material, most of the time it’s closer to .010”.