Understanding of dry fibre compression mechanics for optimisation of next generation biodegradable and sustainable packaging

Plastics dominate the packaging industry, but more environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging solutions are required. Dry forming of cellulose fibres offers a very attractive solution with much decreased environmental impacts, both in the production and after-use, and from a sustainable source. However, commercial dry-forming is still in its infancy and the actual processes occurring inside the material during forming are not well understood. Consequently, failures can occur in the material during production or use and the current possibilities in terms of the formable shapes are limited. Improved understanding of the mechanics and influence of processing parameters would provide direct input to process optimisation and also support the development of numerical simulation approaches for simulation-driven design. We will investigate dry forming using in-situ x-ray microtomography to explore spatio-temporal microstructure evolution and how these vary with temperature.