Analysis of Paper Surface Profile of Two Matte Paper Samples

In this work, two kinds of matte or dull paper, Sappi Galerie brite bulk and MWC UPM paper [1] are selected to represent the low and high levels of paper roughness. Generally, the air-leak smoothness testing generates a value in a short period of time and this accounts to a great extent for the popularity of this method. In practice, paper roughness is commonly determined by measuring the air flow between the paper surface and a reference plane under specified conditions. The Bekk, Bendtsen, and Parker-Print-Surf (PPS) are the best-known instruments in this category. Certainly, the first two are used to express the roughness of paper in air resistance (min/ml) or air flow (ml/min) units, but the Parker-Print-Surf instrument provides a value for the roughness R in μm of the surface from the reference plane. It is found that rough sheets of paper due to replication of the sandpaper surfaces differ to a great deal in Bekk type smoothness, but do not show as much difference as it from sample to sample in PPS roughness.