Structure-property relations of wood fibres: 3D characterisation and modelling

Traditional manufacturing of pulp for paper products in a process of moving to countries with plantations of fast growing trees located close to the mills. Hence, in the long term perspective, the Nordic pulp and paper industry needs to maintain the advan tages offered by its worldwide technological leadership by developing value-added products based on new knowledge and technology that are less sensitive to the price of the wood raw material. Wood fibres are already today applied in a wide range of produc ts. In addition to traditional paper products, wood-fibres are used in for example hygienic products, advanced packaging products and building products as wallboards and MDF boards. The use of wood fibres and their components could, however, be vastly bro ader than it is at present. One particular promising application of wood fibres is as reinforcement in composite applications. However, such use demands for knowledge beyond present state-of-the-art on the fibre ultrastructure and fibre structure. In addi tion, new knowledge on the relations between fibre ultrastructure and important parameters such as strength and stiffness will be necessary to develop. This proposed project directly addresses these challenges and will be an important support for both exi sting and future advanced developing projects that stimulate to further transforming the Nordic Forest based sector into an even more knowledge-based and research intensive sector. The concept of WoodFibre3D is to apply and combine a set of advanced stat e-of-the-art 3D characterisation facilities to gain increased fundamental knowledge on the fibre structures at cell-/fibre-/wood-structural level. This competence will be combined with modelling expertise to understand and predict the mechanical propertie s of the wood fibres and how they can be utilised as reinforcements in composite applications.