Crumpling under an ambient pressure

Abstract

A pressure chamber is designed to study the crumpling process under an ambient force. The compression force and its resulting radius for the ball obey a power law with an exponent that is independent of the thickness and initial size of the sheet. However, the exponent is found to be material-dependent and less than the universal value, 0.25, claimed by the previous simulations. The power law behavior disappears at high pressure when the compressibility drops discontinuously, which is suggestive of a jammed state.