Stiffness properties and stiffness orientation distributions for various paper grades by non-contact laser ultrasonics

The stiffness properties, especially flexural rigidity (FR), out of plane shear rigidity (SR), and stiffness orientation distributions (SOD) are characterized for various paper grades, by a laser ultrasonics instrument. Laser ultrasonics generation is achieved through thermal dilatation by point focusing of a pulsed laser beam onto the surface of the specimen. By probing the excited broadband ultrasound propagating in the samples, the velocities dispersions are obtained and the materials properties are extracted. The measured FR and SR along machine direction (MD) and cross direction (CD) are presented for 10 paper samples ranging from thin copy papers to heavy linerboards. The SOD polar diagrams for some of the samples are also presented and discussed. The relationships of FR, SR, Young's and shear moduli with basis weight are discussed. It is observed that both the Young's and shear moduli tend to decrease significantly when the basis weight increases, going from copy paper to linerboard grades. We also found that SR reaches a maximum value and then decreases when the basis weight increases to 150 g/m(2) and above. This unusual behavior of SR can be explained by the noticeable reduction of shear modulus for heavy linerboards. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.