Crumpling feasibility of flexible paper sheets. Application to packaging in the food industry
Résumé
Flexible packages are considered as the most-reduced form of packaging in terms of environmental performances. In order to contribute to their development, this paper proposes to explore some mechanical properties brought by a new folding process that confers elasticity to flexible materials and consequently new environmental advantages. The innovative folding process consists in sequences of crumpling actions transforming a 2D sheet into a dynamic 3D flexible structure, without cutting or gluing actions. In order to prove the efficiency of the crumpling process, a methodology is proposed to evaluate the ability of a material to be crumpled. The procedure is then applied on different types of papers used in the food industry, and a study case of a crumpled packaging highlights new innovative functionalities as well as its potential environmental gain.