<p>The mechanical behaviour of coated papers during folding has been investigated. This problem has been studied with experimental techniques and numerical analyses in order to give a better understanding of the folding properties of coated papers pertinent to the mechanical behaviour in general, and particularly cracking along the fold. </p><p>A microscopy investigation has been performed. The surface of the folded paper has been carefully examined to study the event of fracture and related issues. The influence of the grammage on the cracking event has been studied and it was shown that the coating material would not fail if the paper sample was sufficiently thin. It was found that a stress or strain based criterion is sufficient to describe the cracking of the coating layers and that the anisotropy of paper should be taken into account when studying the folding process. </p><p>The finite element method has been used for the numerical analyses remembering that the geometry of the problem is rather complicated, excluding a solution in analytical form. Using different constitutive models for the base stock, it has been shown that the deformation of the coated paper during folding is much governed by the paper substrate. The numerical results also suggested that particular forms of plastic anisotropy can substantially reduce the maximum strain levels in the coating. Furthermore, it has also been shown that delamination buckling, in the present circumstances, has a very small influence on the strain levels in the coating layer subjected to high tensile loading. </p><p>Dynamic effects have also been studied and it has been shown that a quasi-static analysis of the problem is sufficient in order to describe many of the important features related to cracking. An attempt to model strong anisotropy of paper has been presented and the results indicate that the large anisotropy in the thickness direction of coated papers needs to be taken into account in order to fully understand the mechanics of folding. </p><p>Finally, an experimental investigation has been presented in order to study if important mechanical properties of the coating material could be determined by microindentation techniques. The results presented indicate that microindentation can be a powerful tool for characterization of these materials, but only if careful efforts are made in order to account for the influence from plasticity as well as from boundary effects. </p><p><b>KEYWORDS:</b> folding, coated papers, finite element method, cracking, indentation, anisotropy, plasticity.</p>

<p>U disertaciji se predstavljaju istraživanja koja su rezultirala razvojem modela objektivne kontrole otpornosti premaznih papira prema površinskom oštećenju u procesima savijanja. Na bazi analize niza izabranih parametara procesa kontrole, ppedložena su tri obeležja digitalnih uzoraka premaznih papira za opis i ocenu površinskog oštećenja. Rezultati predloženih obeležja, kao i korelacione analize omogućuju primenu tih obeležja u funkciji kontrole kvaliteta kao osnove razvoja objektivne procesne kontrole premaznih papira u procesu savijanja.</p> / <p>The research presented in this dissertation resulted in development of the objective quality control model for fold cracking resistance of coated papers. Based on the analysis of chosen control process parameters, three different features of the digitalised coated paper samples were proposed for describing and classifying surface damages. The results of the proposed features along with their correlation analysis contribute to their usage in objective process quality control of coated papers in the folding process.</p>