Les fibres végétales utilisées comme renfort dans les matériaux composites présentent des propriétés mécaniques spécifiques concurrentielles par rapport à celles des fibres de verre. De plus, elles ont l'avantage d'être renouvelables et recyclables. Toutefois, leur principal inconvénient est leur sensibilité à l'humidité, ce qui a pour conséquence d'induire une baisse des propriétés mécaniques ainsi d'une décohésion de l'interface fibre/matrice. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est d'étudier l'influence de l'humidité sur le comportement hygro-mécanique de fibres de lin. La première partie de mes travaux a été consacrée à la caractérisation des propriétés hygroscopiques et mécaniques de la fibre et du composite. Dans la deuxième partie, deux modèles multi-échelles, l'un analytique et l'autre numérique, ont été développés pour l'estimation des propriétés hygro-mécaniques des fibres élémentaires de lin. Ils utilisent en partie pour données d'entrée, les propriétés identifiées dans la première partie. / Natural fibres used as reinforcement in composite materials present specific mechanical properties, which are comparable to glass fibres. In addition, they have the advantage of being renewable and recyclable. But, their main drawback is their inherent susceptibility to moisture expansion, which has the effect of inducing a decrease in mechanical properties, and of debonding and fracturing interface in the composite. The main aim of this thesis is to study the influence of humidity on hygro-mechanical behavior of flax fibres. The first part of my work was deal with the characterization of mechanical and hygroscopic properties of the fibre and the composite. The second part is dedicated to the development of two multiscale models, one analytical and one numerical. They have been developed for the estimation of hygro-mechanical properties of elementary flax fibres. Properties identified in the first part of the work are used as input data.

The aim of this work was to develop a solid knowledge on formulation effects controlling offset ink-paper coating adhesion and to identify key factors of the coating and printing process affecting it. Focus lay on comprehending the impact of pigment dispersant on ink-paper coating adhesion and ultimately on the print quality of offset prints. The work covers laboratory studies, a pilot coating trial designed to produce coated material with a span in surface chemistry and structure, and an industrial offset printing trial. The lab scale studies quantified ink-paper coating adhesion failure during ink setting with a developed laboratory procedure based on the Ink-Surface Interaction Tester (ISIT) and image analysis. Additional polyacrylate dispersant resulted in slower ink setting and reduced ink-paper coating adhesion, with a dependence on its state of salt neutralisation and cation exchange, mainly in the presence of moisture/liquid water. The industrial printing trial on pilot coated papers was designed to study how these laboratory findings affected full scale offset print quality. These trials confirmed the dispersant-sensitive effect on ink-paper coating adhesion, especially at high water feeds. Evaluation of prints from the printing trial resulted in two fundamentally different types of ink adhesion failure being identified. The first type being traditional ink refusal, and the second type being a novel mechanism referred to as ink-lift-off adhesion failure. Ink-lift-off adhesion failure occurs when ink is initially deposited on the paper but then lifted off in a subsequent print unit. In this work, ink adhesion failure by this ink-lift-off mechanism was observed to occur more often than failure due to ink refusal. Print quality evaluation of the industrial prints suggested that water induced mottle was caused by a combination of ink-surface adhesion failure, creating white spots on the print, together with variation in ink layer thickness due to emulsified ink. / <p>QC 20161019</p>