title: Creep of a fracture line in paper peeling.
abstract: The slow motion of a crack line is studied via an experiment in which sheets of paper are split into two halves in a "peel-in-nip" (PIN) geometry under a constant load, in creep. The velocity-force relation is exponential. The dynamics of the fracture line exhibits intermittency, or avalanches, which are studied using acoustic emission. The energy statistics is a power law, with the exponent beta ~ 1.8 +/- 0.1. Both the waiting times between subsequent events and the displacement of the fracture line imply complicated stick-slip dynamics. We discuss the correspondence to tensile PIN tests and other similar experiments on in-plane fracture and the theory of creep for elastic manifolds.
authors.affiliation: Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Physics, FIN-02015, HUT, Finland.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Koivisto
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rosti
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Alava