The onset and progression of damage in isotropic paper sheets

An experimental investigation is performed and analyzed in order to examine the onset and evolution of damage processes in thin isotropic paper sheets made of mechanical pulp. A microscopy technique has been used to estimate the relative fraction of bond and fibre breaks. It has been found that the active damage mechanism is bond failure, hence supporting the assumption of an isotropic scalar valued damage variable. All experiments have been performed by simultaneous with the mechanical loading monitoring the acoustic emission activity. Three different experimental setups have been designed offering the possibility to analyze the influence of stress gradients, as well as different levels of the ratios between the in-plane normal stresses, on the onset of damage. It is concluded that stress gradients in the paper specimens have a large influence on the onset of damage. When stress gradients are present a non-local theory has to be used in the analysis. In this way compliance with an isotropic damage criterion is achieved. The characteristic length, determining the gradient sensitivity, has been found to be of the same order of magnitude as some average fibre length. To study the evolution of the damage processes, wide and short specimens have been loaded in tension resulting in stable damage processes. With the assumptions made regarding the mechanical behavior of the paper material after onset of damage, the damage and the cumulative number of acoustic events curve correlates very well. The experimentally obtained data is used to determine material parameters in a proposed damage evolution law. It is found that the assumed damage evolution law can, for isotropic paper materials with bond rupture as the prevalent failure mechanism, be further simplified as only one specific material dependent damage evolution parameter has to be determined in experiments