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Influence of the hybrid effect on the mechanical properties of pulp molds

  • Hao Sun , Jieyu Cui , Lingjun Wei EMAIL logo , Zhiyi Wu , Haojin Li , Yunfeng Zhu and Wanlin Zhang
Published/Copyright: September 17, 2025
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Abstract

Recently, pulp mold material has emerged as an eco-friendly substitute for plastic due to its natural and recyclable properties. To investigate hybrid effect on pulp mold materials, wood, sugarcane and hybrid pulp (wood: sugarcane=1:1) were used to make boxes. The results of mechanical tests revealed that tensile index, stiffness, bursting index, and static compressive ultimate load of hybrid pulp mold materials are better than those of wood or sugarcane pulp mold materials. It was speculated that the failure mode observed in wood and sugarcane pulp mold boxes was delamination caused by interfacial instability. The eigenvalues, loads, and stresses corresponding to each buckling mode were obtained via buckling simulation analysis. To verify the hybrid mechanism, scanning electron microscope was exploited to distinguish the morphological differences of different fibers. Ultimately, a novel hybrid reinforcement mechanism in pulp mold material was proposed that hybrid effect reinforced the stability of the interface, which impacted the mechanical properties of hybrid pulp mold materials. This study advances the exploration of hybrid effect of interfaces, and the mechanism of interfacial instability and reinforcement can be implied to other pulp mold products.


Corresponding author: Lingjun Wei, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Food Advanced Manufacturing Equipment Technology, School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangnan University, No. 1800, Lihu Avenue, Wuxi, 214122, Jiangsu, PR China, E-mail:

Funding source: Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Food Advanced Manufacturing Equipment Technology

Award Identifier / Grant number: FMZ201905

  1. Research ethics: Not applicable.

  2. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study, or their legal guardians or wards.

  3. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission. H.S. and J.C. wrote the main manuscript text. L.W reviewed and provided revision comments. H.L. and Z.W. prepared figures 1–12 and tables 1–6. Y.Z. provides software support and guidance. W.Z. did background research and data compilation. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

  4. Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.

  5. Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.

  6. Research funding: This work was supported by the Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Food Advanced Manufacturing Equipment Technology (FMZ201905).

  7. Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from the corresponding author.

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Received: 2024-12-02
Accepted: 2025-09-04
Published Online: 2025-09-17

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