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Adequate measurement of thickness of sheet-like materials or membranes is most important for quantifying their properties such as density, barrier properties and mechanical strength. Depending on the surface roughness of the membrane, the thickness measured by standard micrometre devices (apparent thickness) may considerably overestimate the actual geometrical mean thickness (intrinsic thickness) required for such purposes. In this work, we present a method for correcting the measured apparent thickness value of thin membranes for their surface roughness, thereby obtaining an improved estimate of the intrinsic thickness. The surface roughness data required for the correction can be obtained by common surface profiling techniques. The method includes a calibration parameter, the value of which can be found experimentally by independent measurements, or can be estimated theoretically using results from standard mechanical contact theory. The method is tested on a set of nanofibrillated cellulose films with varying roughness levels controlled by pulp fibre content. The surface topography of film samples was measured using laser profilometry, and the method was calibrated experimentally using data from X-ray microtomographic images for one type of film. The intrinsic thickness estimates given by the new method are generally in good accordance with independent results obtained from X-ray microtomography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this work was to determine the optimal welding time for linear friction welding of birch (Betula pendula L.) wood while keeping the other parameters constant and at similar levels compared to other species in a similar density range. Specimens with dimensions of 20 × 5 × 150 mm³ were welded together, and the influence of welding time (2.5, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 s) on the mechanical properties of the specimens was determined. The studies included a tensile-shear strength test as well as visual estimation of wood failure percentage (WFP). Additionally, X-ray microtomographic imaging was used to investigate and characterise the bond line properties as a non-destructive testing method. The highest mean tensile-shear strength, 7.9 MPa, was reached with a welding time of 3.5 s. Generally, all four result groups showed high, yet decreasing proportional standard deviations as the welding time increased. X-ray microtomographic images and analysis express the heterogeneity of the weld line clearly as well. According to the averaged group-wise results, WFP and tensile-shear strength correlated positively with an R² of 0.93. An extrapolation of WFP to 65% totals a tensile-shear strength of 10.6 MPa, corresponding to four common adhesive bonds determined for beech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanical properties of composites in the fibre direction are mainly attributed to the fibre slenderness, or aspect ratio. A trade-off between performance and processability is usually required, and dependent on the intended application. If the fibre length could be retained or not severely degraded during various processing steps towards the injection-moulded component, a stiffer and stronger composite product could be obtained. The processing steps for injection moulded wood-fibre composites here include: pulping, commingling, extrusion, pelletizing, and injection moulding. To tune the processing parameters systematically for retained fibre length, it would be useful to investigate the degradation of the original fibre length distribution throughout the processing chain. The fibre length degradation has been monitored by X-ray micro-computed tomography through the processing steps in wood pulp-fibre reinforced polylactide. A significant fibre-length degradation was found. In particular, the extrusion step was found to result in a drastic fibre length reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broader use of bio-based fibres in packaging becomes possible when the mechanical properties of fibre materials exceed those of conventional paperboard. Hot-pressing provides an efficient method to improve both the wet and dry strength of lignin-containing paper webs. Here we study varied pressing conditions for webs formed with thermomechanical pulp (TMP). The results are compared against similar data for a wide range of other fibre types. In addition to standard strength and structural measurements, we characterise the induced structural changes with X-ray microtomography and scanning electron microscopy. The wet strength generally increases monotonously up to a very high pressing temperature of 270 °C. The stronger bonding of wet fibres can be explained by the inter-diffusion of lignin macromolecules with an activation energy around 26 kJ mol−1 after lignin softening. The associated exponential acceleration of diffusion with temperature dominates over other factors such as process dynamics or final material density in setting wet strength. The optimum pressing temperature for dry strength is generally lower, around 200 °C, beyond which hemicellulose degradation begins. By varying the solids content prior to hot-pressing for the TMP sheets, the highest wet strength is achieved for the completely dry web, while no strong correlation was observed for the dry strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]