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If I am to make a block using the materials for making paper, what would its compressive strength be? I am interested in not the stacked paper test, but using the same material in a block form since I do not believe they will fail the same way (or if you think otherwise, please explain your logic behind your deductions).

In terms of the material of paper, I am pretty flexible. The ideal will be a range of papers with shorter fibers and less interfiber connections, and papers with longer fibers and more interfiber connections.

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  • $\begingroup$ Have you tested a ream of paper? What about a roll of paper 8m long 2m diameter but that is usually on a steel former. $\endgroup$
    – Solar Mike
    Commented Jan 31, 2022 at 21:08
  • $\begingroup$ No, I haven't tested it. I kind of felt like the slip between papers will affect the resultant mode of failure though, don't you think? $\endgroup$
    – Isa
    Commented Jan 31, 2022 at 21:15
  • $\begingroup$ Are you trying to make a block out of sheets of paper or trying to make a block out of papermachine wires, felts, & rollers? And what do you mean by a block? Like a thick piece of paper? $\endgroup$
    – Tiger Guy
    Commented Jan 31, 2022 at 22:37
  • $\begingroup$ So, what I am actually trying to find is how the compressive and tensile properties vary for a binder type block like this that has a high stiffness, extremely high fiber content. Paper generally has close to 99% fiber. Fiberboard is no where near that, so I was wondering if you can make something with real volume for something that's like paper, with that high of a fiber content, what kind of compressive strength that will be. I have tensile of paper already, and I want to know how and how much compressive will differ. $\endgroup$
    – Isa
    Commented Feb 1, 2022 at 23:34
  • $\begingroup$ What I meant by block will be "thickness" to the ratio of other dimensions will not be close to zero and that it has to be large enough that Newtonian physics will still apply. $\endgroup$
    – Isa
    Commented Feb 1, 2022 at 23:38

1 Answer 1

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The answer depends on the fiber length, diameter, chemical makeup, moisture content, direction of fiber alignment relative to the applied stresses, and what binder is added to make the fibers stay stuck together.

Without knowledge of all these things, the compressive strength of a fiber block cannot be predicted.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hmm, so maybe the question to ask is, what binders do manufactures usually use for paper? Do they all have proprietary blends? Or is it more like, a plank is a plank and there's not much more to it? $\endgroup$
    – Isa
    Commented Feb 1, 2022 at 22:33
  • $\begingroup$ @Isa, every paper mill and paper brand from that mill will have a different proprietary recipe for fiber source, cotton content, filler percentages, binders, coatings, tints and brighteners as well as all the machine setting required to bake that recipe into a product and ship it out the door to a converter. it is an extraordinarily complicated business. $\endgroup$
    – niels nielsen
    Commented Feb 2, 2022 at 3:06

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