Refined bleached chemical softwood was fractionated using a hydrocyclone in a fine and a coarse fraction. The trials were done at three inject concentrations, three coarse fraction volume ratios, and with pulps refined with two refining levels.

A large difference in sheet properties between fine and coarse fraction was observed. Compared with the feed pulp, the relative change in the sheet properties increased more in the fine fractions than it decreased in the coarse fractions. Increased fines proportion had a positive effect on all properties up to a certain level when a further improvement could not be observed. Interestingly, the fine fractions of both refining levels reached the same absolute strength level, both for the tensile properties and z-strength. The fine fractions at the highest coarse fraction mass ratios contained more fines, and the mean fibre was shorter and narrower. This led to higher density but also a decrease of the stretch-at-break and z-strength values.

When comparing these results with previous fractionation results for unrefined pulp, it was found that inject concentration did not have a large effect on thickening in the present study. As for the refined pulp, the tensile index increased with fines proportion for the unrefined pulp, however, only up to a certain fines proportion where a maximum values was reached. The increase was larger for the refined pulps which had higher fines proportion.