Multiscale Stick-Slip Dynamics of Adhesive Tape Peeling

Using a high-speed camera, we follow the propagation of the detachment front during the peeling of an adhesive tape from a flat surface. In a given range of peeling velocity, this front displays a multiscale unstable dynamics, entangling two well-separated spatiotemporal scales, which correspond to microscopic and macroscopic dynamical stick-slip instabilities. While the periodic release of the stretch energy of the whole peeled ribbon drives the classical macro-stick-slip, we show that the micro-stick-slip, due to the regular propagation of transverse dynamic fractures discovered by Thoroddsen et al. [Phys. Rev. E 82, 046107 (2010)], is related to a high-frequency periodic release of the elastic bending energy of the adhesive ribbon concentrated in the vicinity of the peeling front.