Short Span Compressive Stress-strain Relation and Model of Molded Pulp Material

Short span compressive experiments of molded pulp specimens were carried out on the SHIMADZU material test machine, resulting in the stress-strain curves. The analytic results indicate that the material density and the loading rate are the two major factors that influence the stress-strain relationships of the molded pulp materials. With the increase of material's density, elastic modulus and ultimate strength both increase. With the increase of loading rate, elastic modulus decreases whereas ultimate strength increases. By analyzing the test results and the existing models, an improved stress-strain model for molded pulp material, with the two factors taken into consideration, has been proposed. The model coefficients are obtained by fitting against the short span compressive experimental data for the materials with different densities under different loading rate. Comparison made between the experimental results and calculated results indicates that the proposed model can well fit the stress-strain curves of molded pulp.