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glossary/sct

SCT (short span compression test)

Also: SCT, short span compression

A test of compressive strength over a very short span (0.7 mm), now the preferred predictor of corrugated box compression strength.

SCT measures the maximum compressive force a paper strip can withstand before buckling over a 0.7 mm span. The short span eliminates the buckling that longer-span tests (like RCT) can't isolate, giving a purer measure of the paper's intrinsic compressive strength.

SCT has become the preferred strength metric for containerboard and cartonboard because it correlates better with box compression strength than RCT at light grammages. Defined by ISO 9895.