Trying to remove wallpaper, adhesive tape, or decal can be a formidable task if the glue underneath is strong. Strips can be removed by tearing down the exposed surface of the film, but they decrease in width and collapse in triangular shapes, so that the process has to be repeated again and again. The basic physical phenomena involved include the fracture of the surface, the detachment from the substrate and the release of mechanical elastic energy in the process of peeling. Our aim is to describe the shapes we have found in experiments and identify how the elastic energy is stored.
People involved

Benoit Roman (CNRS/ESPCI)
Pedro Ress (CNRS/ESPCI)
Eugenio Hamm (Universidad de Santiago)
Felipe Barra (Universidad de Chile)
Enrique Cerda (Universidad de Santiago)

References

"Confined developable elastic surfaces: cylinders, cones and the Elastica", Cerda, E., and L. Mahadevan, 2005. Proc. R. Soc. A, 461, 671.

"Fracture of Brittle Solids" Lawn, B. R., and Wilshaw, 1975. Cambridge University Press.

"Thin-film Peeling--the Elastic Term" Kendall K., 1975. J. Physics D, 8, 1449.

"Cracks in Thin Sheets: When Geometry Rules the Fracture Path" Audoly, B., Reis P., and Roman B. , 2005. Phys. Rev. Letters, 95, 025502.

"Crack Street: The Cycloidal Wake of a Cylinder Tearing through a Thin Sheet" A. Ghatak and L. Mahadevan, 2003. Phys. Rev. Lett., 91, 215507.