Systematic Study of Paper Breaks in Papermaking Process Using Fracture Mechanics - (1) Evaluation of Fracture Toughness in Wet State

Fracture toughness was considered as one of the good estimates of the paper break tendency of paper web in the press room. Paper break on the paper machine is caused by many factors such as paper machine irregular vibrations, impurities in the fiber furnish, shives, and so on. On the paper machine, the solid content of paper web is changing very rapidly from less than 1% to over 95%. We tried to measure the fracture toughness of paper web at different solid contents for providing the fundamental knowledge of paper break. Stretches of wet web were also measured and compared to the fracture toughness changes. Four different fiber furnishes (SwBKP, HwBKP, ONP, and OCC) were refined to different degrees, and at different solid contents (40%, 60%, 80%, and 95%), their fracture toughnesses were measured. Two fracture toughness measurement methods (essential work of fracture and Tryding's load-widening method) were used, and we found they gave identical results. The stretch curves of the wet webs against the axis of solid contents were very similar to the fracture toughness curves of those.