Self-amplification of solid friction in interleaved assemblies

It is nearly impossible to separate two interleaved phonebooks when held by their spines. A full understanding of this astonishing demonstration of solid friction in complex assemblies has remained elusive. In this Letter, we report on experiments with controlled booklets and show that the force required increases sharply with the number of sheets. A model captures the effect of the number of sheets, their thickness and the overlapping distance. Furthermore, the data collapse onto a self-similar master curve with one dimensionless amplification parameter. In addition to solving a long-standing familiar enigma, this model system provides a framework with which one can accurately measure friction forces and coefficients at low loads, and that has relevance to complex assemblies from the macro to the nanoscale.
Comment: in Physical Review Letters (2015)