THE EFFECT OF FIBER LENGTH AND COARSENESS ON THE TENSILE-STRENGTH OF WET WEBS - A STATISTICAL GEOMETRY EXPLANATION

The tensile strength of wet webs made at 30% solids from softwood kraf t pulps has been found to be proportional to fiber length, and inverse ly proportional to the square of fiber coarseness. These results can b e explained if the web is considered as a pile of noninteracting thin sheets, and the number of fiber-fiber contacts sheared along the ruptu re line is calculated from statistical geometry.