Moisture content of polyethylene coated solid fibreboard after industrial lamination

Solid fibreboard is used mainly in highly demanding packaging applications. One solid fibreboard quality having six paper and paperboard layers, a thickness of 1.7 mm and polyethylene coating was studied. Several material tests on liquid water and water vapour penetration were done to assess the environmental moisture sources that change the material moisture content after the lamination process. The in‐plane diffusion coefficient of the combined board was determined based on an integrated unsteady state moisture transport equation and moisture sorption measurements. The transverse diffusion coefficient of the polyethylene coated kraft paper and the solid fibreboard medium were based on water vapour transmission rate measurements. The original moisture content of the solid fibreboard sheet was measured gravimetrically 2 days after the lamination at the mill. The results show that high relative humidity (RH) conditions during the transportation (4°C/90% RH) change the moisture content of the transportation box made from a solid fibreboard sheet very little in 8 days. Local moister (or drier) areas are created near the sheet edges due to in‐plane moisture transport through open material edges. The in‐plane diffusivity for the solid fibreboard grade in question was 5.87 × 10^?10 m²/s. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.