Evaluation of the Scott bond test method

The Scott bond test is the most commonly used test method for quantifying the delamination resistance of paper and board. The objective of this investigation was to validate the hypothesis that the Scott bond value would be dominated by the total energy under the force elongation curve in a z-directional tensile test. The investigation comprised three types of hand sheets with comparatively low strength values. Three test methods were used to obtain the energy for delamination: 1) Z-test, a z-directional tensile test, 2) Scott bond test, and 3) Simulated Scott bond test, a Scott bond type of test performed in a hydraulic tensile tester. The test data were expressed as a correlation between the failure energy obtained from the Z-test and the other two tests. The results showed that the Scott bond test gave slightly higher values than the Z-test for the weakest paper, but that the value tended to be much higher for the stronger papers. On the other hand the Simulated Scott bond test tended to give lower values than the Z-test. High speed photography was used to reveal several energy consuming mechanisms in the Scott bond test that can explain why this test gave higher values than the Z-test. The lower values from the Simulated Scott bond values are more difficult to explain. At this stage we can suggest that the failure mechanism is different if the paper is delaminated by pure tension or by a gradual delamination as in the Scott bond test.