Influence of bonding on the tensile creep behavior of paper in a cyclic humidity environment

It has been shown, as paper structure is improved through increased bonding (by increasing relative bonded area or specific bond strength), a fully efficient loaded structure can be achieved. Once fully efficient, further improvements in bonding become redundant and have no effect on some paper deformation behaviors; deformation is dictated only by the characteristics of the fibers. Although previous work had shown this was true for elastic modulus and short time duration stress-strain behavior, it has only recently been shown to be true for constant humidity tensile creep behavior. In this study, the goal was to ascertain if cyclic humidity tensile creep behavior (known as accelerated creep) would follow the same trend. To accomplish this, sheets were made at differing levels of relative bonded area and specific bond strength. This was done by applying two different wet pressing levels (to alter relative bonded area) and using bonder and debonder (to change specific bond strength). It was found that accelerated creep behavior of paper sheets is no different than constant humidity creep behavior; changing bonding does not influence accelerated creep if the sheet has a fully efficient loaded structure. If the sheet structure is inefficiently loaded (there is no redundancy in bonding), accelerated creep will be affected by bonding. However, it is proposed that the only reason accelerated creep is influenced by bonding when inefficiently loaded is because constant humidity creep behavior determines the accelerated behavior and it is influenced, in this case, by bonding.