Influence of beating and chemical additives on residual stresses in paper

Residual stresses are the stresses remaining in a material when all external forces are removed. Residual stresses in paper can influence the converting and end-use performance. There are well-established methods for determining residual stresses in paper, and some knowledge exists of how to control and tailor the residual stresses. However, there is an increasing demand to be able to tailor paper grades with respect to their mechanical properties. Pulp fibres are commonly beaten to improve the mechanical performance, but beating also increases the sheet density, de-watering resistance, and residual stresses of the paper produced. This work examines whether beating and the addition of chemical additives, i.e., a single layer of poly(allylamine) or a multilayer of poly(allylamine) and poly(acrylic acid), exert different effects on the build-up of residual stresses in paper. Both beating the fibres and adding polyelectrolytes increased the in-plane strength, stiffness, and residual stresses of the paper sheets prepared. The fact that the residual stresses did not scale linearly with the stiffness of the prepared sheets suggests that both beating and polyelectrolyte addition made the fibre/fibre joints transfer load at a lower solids content, such that stresses were transferred between fibre layers in the sheet earlier in the drying process, thus increasing the residual stresses. The fact that the strength gain when building polyelectrolyte multi layers induced less residual stresses than when the strength was increased by beating indicates the possibilities for producing paper with high strength but less residual stress.