Forces & Stresses

• Guillotines and paper trimmers

  • Lastly, guillotines and paper trimmers can cut large sheets of paper or card.
• Forces

  • Torsion - a twisting force applied to both or one end of a material.
  • Shear - forces acting across the material in opposite directions.
  • Tension - pulling force (outwards).
  • Compression - pushing force which is inwards.
  • Bending - forces at an angle in particular to sheet materials.
• Cardboard and paper

  • Cardboard is often corrugated and shows good resistance to forces.
  • The strength of cardboard allows it to be used to package products and protect them.
  • On the other hand, paper does not have good resistance to forces and stress. However, these can be enhanced with other materials added to paper such as polymers e.g. laminating.
• Foam board

  • Foam board is a common example of combining two materials for a purpose.
  • Foam gives the thickness but is held by two layers of gloss paper.
  • This can then be used for presentation boards as it retains a high quality and professional feel without the weight that thicker boards and cards possess.
• Corrugated board


  • Corrugated board uses waves between two sheets which resists impact and force and so protects the product that it is packaging.
  • Interestingly, corrugated cardboard is used to package paper.
  • Resistance to compression is required when using a paper trimmer to cut through the material.
• Lamination


  • Lamination can be used to protect and make the work waterproof by sandwiching two layers of clear plastic using heat or cold-based methods.