2022
Descriptive and generative models of crumpled sheets
  • Vyzoviti, S., Sotiriou, J., 2014. Descriptive and Generative Models of Crumpled Sheets. What’s The Matter” Materiality and Materialism at the Age of Computation, International Conference, COAC, ETSAB, ETSAV, Barcelona, September 4-5-6
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  • Materiality and Materialism at the Age of Computation, International Conference, COAC, ETSAB, ETSAV, Barcelona, September 4-5-6
    14

excerpt

When a sheet of paper is crumpled, it acquires permanent scars displaying the distribution of stress along its’ surface. These irregular creases that wrinkle the paper surface reveal that crumpling has focused the stress at some points, exceeding there the limit yield of the material and leading thus to irreversible plastic deformations (Amar and Pomeau, 1997).Crumpled sheets have been investigated by physicists with respect to their buckling and elasticity and by mathematicians through the geometry of developable surfaces. Cambou and Menon produced a series of statistical descriptions of forced crumpling experiments, focusing on the distortional stress a flat aluminum sheet is subjected to while becoming a crumpled ball (Cambou and Menon 2011). What we find particularly interesting in this research is the predictability of such a transformation of matter, the possibilities of pattern recognition within the random folding and further simulation with precision. One of the most intriguing observations made during their X-ray microtomography experiments reveal that the internal three-dimensional geometry of a crumpled ball is in many respects isotropic and homogeneous. A crumpled sheet consists of multiple flat layers of material thus, revealing that in the case of crumpled paper, randomly applied forces result to uniformly distorted geometries. Diamant and Witten, observe a surprising condition of symmetry in the wrinkles and folds of thin coated surfaces on fluid substrates (Diamant, Witten 2013). What is quite interesting about their research is the identification of a condition of ambivalence in this material behavior. Given a certain compression, a sheet floating on water, displays alternative deformations between symmetric and anti-symmetric folds with no cost of energy.