Abstract
It is nearly impossible to separate two interleaved phone books when held by their spines. A full understanding of this astonishing demonstration of solid friction in complex assemblies remains elusive. In this Letter, we report on experiments with controlled booklets and show that the force required increases sharply with the number of sheets. A model captures the effect of the number of sheets, their thickness, and the overlapping distance. Furthermore, the data collapse onto a self-similar master curve with one dimensionless amplification parameter. In addition to solving a long-standing familiar enigma, this model system provides a framework with which one can accurately measure friction forces and coefficients at low loads, and that has relevance to complex assemblies from the macro- to the nanoscale.
- Received 29 September 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.015502
© 2016 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Synopsis
The Strength of Interleaved Phonebooks Explained
Published 7 January 2016
A simple model borne out by experiments explains why it's so hard to separate a pair of phonebooks whose pages have been interleaved.
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