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Crumpling a Thin Sheet

Kittiwit Matan, Rachel B. Williams, Thomas A. Witten, and Sidney R. Nagel
Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 076101 – Published 30 January 2002
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Abstract

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.

  • Received 6 November 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.076101

©2002 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Kittiwit Matan, Rachel B. Williams, Thomas A. Witten, and Sidney R. Nagel

  • The James Franck Institute and The Department of Physics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637

See Also

Scaling the Crumpled Heights

Adrian Cho
Phys. Rev. Focus 9, 7 (2002)

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Issue

Vol. 88, Iss. 7 — 18 February 2002

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