Impact of fiber characteristics on the homogeneity of paper micro-mechanics, topography and micro formation

Since standardized handsheet testing procedures are only sufficient to characterize the development of pulp properties e.g. during mechanical pulping in a macro scale, two testing systems, developed and patented by Innowep GmbH - TRACEiTr Profilometer and USTr Universal Surface Tester - were applied on TMP handsheets to go further in answering questions about the correlation between dimensions and character of fibers and paper characteristics in a micro scale. The resulting parameters correlate well with pulp data such as mass-weighted fiber length, fiber width and z-directional handsheet structure and could explain some effects of handsheet manufacturing on the handsheet properties. Thus, also a better understanding of how to perform physical tests on handsheets and how to interpret the gained results could be found.