Crackling noise in paper peeling

TL;DR

This paper investigates crackling noise during paper peeling, revealing power-law energy distribution, scale-free event intervals, and correlations in acoustic emissions, linked to microstructure and steady-state crack propagation.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of acoustic emission statistics during paper peeling, highlighting scale-free behavior and correlations related to microstructure.

Findings

Energy of acoustic events follows a power-law with exponent ~1.8.

Event intervals exhibit scale-free statistics with a characteristic time scale.

Correlations exist in the series of acoustic events, related to steady-state crack propagation.

Abstract

Acoustic emission or crackling noise is measured from an experiment on splitting or peeling of paper. The energy of the events follows a power-law, with an exponent $\beta \sim 1.8\pm 0.2$. The event intervals have a wide range, but superposed on scale-free statistics there is a time-scale, related to the typical spatial scale of the microstructure (a bond between two fibers). Since the peeling takes place via steady-state crack propagation, correlations can be studied with ease and shown to exist in the series of acoustic events.