Fold analysis of crumpled sheets using microcomputed tomography

Hand-crumpled paper balls involve intricate structure with a network of creases and vertices, yet show simple scaling properties, which suggests self-similarity of the structure. We investigate the internal structure of crumpled papers by the microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) without destroying or unfolding them. From the reconstructed three-dimensional (3D) data, we examine several power laws for the crumpled square sheets of paper of the sizes L=50-300 mm and obtain the mass fractal dimension D_{M}=2.7±0.1 by the relation between the mass and the radius of gyration of the balls and the fractal dimension 2.5≲d_{f}≲2.8 for the internal structure of each crumpled paper ball by the box counting method in the real space and the structure factors in the Fourier space. The data for the paper sheets are consistent with D_{M}=d_{f}, suggesting that the self-similarity in the structure of each crumpled ball gives rise to the similarity among the balls with different sizes. We also examine the cellophane sheets and the aluminium foils of the size L=200 mm and obtain 2.6≲d_{f}≲2.8 for both of them. The micro-CT also allows us to reconstruct 3D structure of a line drawn on the crumpled sheets of paper. The Hurst exponent for the root-mean-square displacement along the line is estimated as H≈0.9 for the length scale shorter than the scale of the radius of gyration, beyond which the line structure becomes more random with H∼0.5.