'In between crumples, the sheets were carefully flattened and their height profile scanned using an instrument called a profilometer. 'In the experiment, thin sheets of Mylar, a thin film that crumples similarly to paper, were systematically crumpled several times, developing some new creases with each repetition,' Andrejevic, the 2021 paper's lead author, explains via email. The latest breakthrough in our understanding of crumpling is a paper recently published in Nature Communications, in which researchers describe a physical model for what happens when thin sheets are crumpled, unfolded and recrumpled.

To the contrary, crumpling turns out to be a predictable, reproducible process governed by mathematics. What do a sheet of paper being crushed into a ball and tossed into a wastebasket, the front end of a car deforming in a crash, and the Earth's crust gradually forming mountains over millions of years all have in common? They're all undergoing a physical process called crumpling, which occurs when a relatively thin sheet of material - one with a thickness that's much less than its length or width - has to fit into a smaller area.Īnd while it's easy to imagine crumpling as mere desultory disarray, scientists who've studied crumpling have discovered that it's anything but that. Learning how materials react when compressed in 'geometric frustration' is behind the science of crumple theory, which aids in the design of all kinds of everyday products and materials.

Flipboard paper