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Crumpled Matter made from Sticky and Damaged Sheets
he cause for the relatively high compressive strength of a crumpled sheet has long fascinated many researchers. When a sheet is confined in a spherical cavity it slowly bends and collides with itself until it becomes trapped in a complicated random state. Much research has focused on the geometry of the complex construct in the hopes that the structure coupled with the physics of ‘building block’ substructures (bends, folds, d-cones and ridges) will allow the creation of fundamental models. Our pproach to the crumpled matter problem focuses on intentionally simple experiments aimed at the
macroscopic measurables of the crumpled state. For example, we use both plastic and elastic sheets to test how crumpling if affected by plasticity, we alter levels of inter-sheet adhesion to see if crumpled matter is changed as it become more immobile, and we add cuts to disturb the arrangement of bending networks within the crumple. In this talk, we will focus on some of our more recent work with sticky and cut sheets where we couple our simple experiments with a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model for added insight. If time permits, we will also show how ‘sticky crumpled matter’ can find application as a unique roughness-tolerant pressure sensitive adhesive.