{"id":305226,"date":"2021-08-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?post_type=selected&p=305226"},"modified":"2021-08-25T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T06:00:00","slug":"how-to-unloop-a-sticky-loop","status":"publish","type":"selected","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/selected\/how-to-unloop-a-sticky-loop\/","title":{"rendered":"How to unloop a sticky loop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Besides being sticky, what do band aids and adhesive tapes have in common? Blisters and loops of course! Surely, you\u2019ve encountered blisters (tiny air pockets) or loops when using band aids or tapes, which can be quite annoying and difficult to remove. What\u2019s more, they can also affect the materials used to make flexible electronics and soft robotics. Fear not though as researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology a<\/a>nd University of Twente <\/a>have studied the unpeeling of looped adhesive tape and developed a new model to explain how best to remove troublesome loops. The new research is published in European Physics Letters <\/a>(EPL).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine a tape where the two sticky sides are stuck together resulting in a loop. If you try to remove the loop by pulling the two loop ends, something surprising happens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full press release through this lin<\/a>k<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The size of the contact area between the sticky sides starts to decrease but the loop doesn\u2019t then unloop as you might expect. Instead, as you peel the two sides apart, the loop just shrinks in size until it reaches a critical small size and then eventually unloops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Straight tape loops<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Removing loops and blisters has implications for more than just band aids and sticky tape, as Jacco Snoeijer points out. \u201cWhen working with materials for thin flexible electronics and soft robotics, it\u2019s important to know what forces should be applied to remove blisters or loops. Otherwise, you face the prospect of permanently damaging the material\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To study how loops change when subject to varying peeling forces and velocities, the researchers decided to study how loops evolved in different tapes. But they needed a reliable way to make straight tape loops in the lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn straight tape loops the two sticky sides of the tape are perfectly aligned or parallel. If the two sides were not parallel, the loop would twist as the size decreased, and we wanted to avoid any twisting physics,\u201d notes Twan Wilting. \u201cAs we didn\u2019t have automated devices, we had to make the loops by hand. It goes without saying that it was a testing and trying process!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Model breakthrough<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Once the unpeeling experiments had been complete, the researchers used the observations to construct a new model that describes the loop shrinkage process and gives an indication of the critical loop size (before final unlooping) and the critical peeling force. \u201cThe model matches the experimental observations very well. Perhaps in the future we\u2019ll add more to the model, particularly on how the adhesives evolve during unlooping,\u201c says Snoeijer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow to unloop a self-adherent sheet<\/a>\u201d, Twan Wilting, Martin Essink, Hanneke Gelderblom, and Jacco Snoeijer, European Physics Letters, (2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read also: The miraculous discovery of \u2018sticky goo\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1760,"featured_media":305225,"template":"views\/single-selected.blade.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[34665],"tags":[27736,2519],"location":[],"internal_archives":[],"class_list":["post-305226","selected","type-selected","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-loop","tag-tue-en"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/RHHrHmZR-Schermafbeelding-2021-08-24-om-14.36.32-1.png","coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/arnoud-cornelissen\/","display_name":"Arnoud Cornelissen"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 5 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 25, 2021","modified":"Updated on August 25, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 25, 2021 8:00 am","modified":"Updated on August 25, 2021 8:00 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Twan Wilting","tax_additional":{"category":{"linked":["Health<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Health<\/span>"],"slug":"category","name":"Categories"},"post_tag":{"linked":["LOOP<\/a>","TU\/e<\/a>"],"unlinked":["LOOP<\/span>","TU\/e<\/span>"],"slug":"post_tag","name":"Tags"},"language":{"linked":["EN<\/a>"],"unlinked":["EN<\/span>"],"slug":"language","name":"Tags"},"post_translations":{"linked":["pll_6124e9de0ee53<\/a>"],"unlinked":["pll_6124e9de0ee53<\/span>"],"slug":"post_translations","name":""},"location":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"location","name":"Locations"},"internal_archives":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"internal_archives","name":"Internal Archives"}},"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected\/305226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/selected"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305226"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=305226"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=305226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}