The elastic modulus of paper coating in tension and compression

The mechanical properties of paper coatings were studied in tension and compression. Coatings were formulated with soft and hard latexes and using different latex fractions for the sake of comparison. The elastic modulus was determined under static loading conditions and showed no effect when using different loading rates. Voigt, Reuss and Halpin-Tsai models were used to predict the elastic modulus of coatings in compression and tension. In tension, the models showed a high level of variability and no particular model could be deemed suitable for predicting the tensile modulus of coatings. In compression, the Voigt model was shown to predict the elastic modulus of coatings to within one standard deviation of the experimental mean and the reason for the success of the Voigt model as a means of predicting the compressive modulus is related to its micro-deformational characteristics.