A Comparison of Class Characteristics Among Several Crosscut Shredders

Although a handful of papers have been written on the re-assembly of shredded documents, little is known about how shredders of different makes and models operate. The purpose of this project was to distinguish crosscut shredders of different makes and models by determining the manner in which they shred. A total of seven shredders were evaluated by means of their paper shred and machine characteristics. Several of these characteristics include mean width and length of the shred, physical appearance of the shreds, width of the shredder throat and the type of cutting mechanism within the machine. Three of the seven shredders were of different makes, while two pairs of machines were of the same make and model. The two primary objectives of this research were: first, to analyze the output of the seven shredders: and second, to determine and compare the class characteristics of each individual shredder. It was also expected that possible indications of individual characteristics might be detected between the shredders of the same make and model.