Application of silicone based elastomers for manufacturing of Green Fiber Bottle

Due to ever-increasing demand of sustainable products, eco-friendly packaging solutions are findingtheir importance in the paper packaging industry [1]. Green Fiber Bottle (GFB) is an alternative toplastic, glass and metal based packaging for beverages. The manufacturing of paper bottle is a two-stageprocess, where the wood fibers are first thermoformed in the desired shape followed by drying of theformed geometry [2]. To ensure the robustness of the bottle and to avoid shrinkage of cellulose fibers,the wet-formed bottle is pressurized using a silicone core. The core is inserted inside the drying tooland inflated. This keeps the wet bottle under pressure thereby enhancing formation of good hydrogenbonds, and hence providing good strength. The feasibility of the tool design concept is supported withFinite Element Model. The hyperelastic behaviour of silicone is defined by the deformation energyfunction (W). To simulate the inflation action of the core, Yeoh’s model is used for modelling of W. Thestrength of the GFB is correlated with the pressure the bottle can hold and the cut off burst pressurefrom experiments is also reported in this work.