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Updated: May 27, 2026

Using Adhesive Patterning to Construct 3D Paper Microfluidic Devices
Published on: April 1, 2016
How geometry controls the tearing of adhesive thin films on curved surfaces
Olga Kruglova1, Fabian Brau, Didier Villers
1Laboratoire Interfaces and Fluides Complexes, CIRMAP, Université de Mons, Mons, Belgium.
Abstract:
Flaps can be detached from a thin film glued on a solid substrate by tearing and peeling. For flat substrates, it has been shown that these flaps spontaneously narrow and collapse in pointy triangular shapes. Here we show that various shapes, triangular, elliptic, acuminate, or spatulate, can be observed for the tears by adjusting the curvature of the substrate. From combined experiments and theoretical models, we show that the flap morphology is governed by simple geometric rules.
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