Energy distributions and effective temperatures in the packing of elastic sheets

TL;DR

This study explores the packing behavior of elastic sheets in a quasi-2D setup, revealing energy distributions with exponential tails and defining effective temperatures based on these distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental method to analyze elastic sheet packing and demonstrates the concept of effective temperature in a non-thermal system.

Findings

Energy distributions have exponential tails.

Sub-systems in contact and within the bulk share identical energy distributions.

Effective temperatures can be defined from energy distribution scales.

Abstract

The packing of elastic sheets is investigated in a quasi two-dimensional experimental setup: a sheet is pulled through a rigid hole acting as a container, so that its configuration is mostly prescribed by the cross-section of the sheet in the plane of the hole. The characterisation of the packed configuration is made possible by using refined image analysis. The geometrical properties and energies of the branches forming the cross-section are broadly distributed. We find distributions of energy with exponential tails. This setup naturally divides the system into two sub-systems: in contact with the container and within the bulk. While the geometrical properties of the sub-systems differ, their energy distributions are identical, indicating 'thermal' homogeneity and allowing the definition of effective temperatures from the characteristic scales of the energy distributions.