Crumpling a thin sheet.
Crumpled sheets have a surprisingly large resistance to further compression. We have studied the crumpling of thin sheets of Mylar under different loading conditions. When placed under a fixed compressive force, the size of a crumpled material decreases logarithmically in time for periods up to three weeks. We also find hysteretic behavior when measuring the compression as a function of applied force. By using a pretreating protocol, we control this hysteresis and find reproducible scaling behavior for the size of the crumpled material as a function of the applied force.
Matan
Kittiwit
K
The James Franck Institute and The Department of Physics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Williams
Rachel B
RB
Witten
Thomas A
TA
Nagel
Sidney R
SR