The tensile behaviour of paper under high loading rates

This work deals with the strain-rate dependent characterization of paper under uniaxial tension at high strain-rates. Experiments were performed involving a Split Hopkinson bar for high strain-rate testing, comparing the results with conventional quasi-static tests. Tests were conducted in a strain-rate range between 0.0083 and 212 s^-1, which is equivalent to testing velocities between 0.0003 and roughly 13.6 m/s. For the first time the change in tensile behaviour of paper is comprehensively characterized and modelled, using the Cowper-Symonds model for strain-rate hardening. The experimental tests showed that the tensile strength as well as the initial stiffness were gradually increasing with increasing strain-rate. The increase in tensile strength between the lowest and the highest strain-rate was 58% on average whereas the mean increase in stiffness between these two strain-rates was almost 115%. Regarding the fracture strain, it was observed that it significantly decreases with increasing strain-rate. While the average fracture strain of the quasi-static tests was at roughly 6% it was close to 3% for the dynamic tests. In case of the Split Hopkinson bar tests, high-speed videos of the samples were made to determine their elongation via target tracking and digital image correlation (DIC). We found that strain localization, which is a highly relevant mechanism for quasi-static tensile failure, is likely related to short term plastic creep of the material as strain localization nearly entirely disappears at high loading rates of paper.