The pinwheel pattern as a suitable and advantageous alternative for the loading implementation of the pallet loading problem （PLP） is identified after a survey on the loading pattern. The definitions, elements, categories, generating algorithms of the pinwheel pattern are discussed and a uniform symmetric pinwheel notation is proposed. Based on the forming geometry of a pinwheel, the pinwheel structure is analyzed in terms of the innate box ratio, the box/block orientation and the box number by combinatorial and geometrical methods. A revised data set for the PLP with an area ratio range from 1 to 76 and a box ratio range from 1 to 10 is proposed. All pinwheel instances with this data set are calculated, and box ratio range is obtained for each possible pinwheel pattern, which can be found for all non-prime numbers of boxes. And a high box ratio makes an optimal pinwheel pattern more likely appear. Results identify the impact of the above pinwheel pattern and the box ratio on the pallet loading problem.
