BUILDING a sticky substance into car bodywork could make them more resistant to impacts, new experiments suggest.
Paula Mellado of Harvard University and her colleagues tested how flexible, CD-sized plastic discs crumple when their centres are pulled through coin-sized holes. The sides of each disc are forced to bend inwards, forming cone-like structures that rub against one another. In an upcoming edition of , the team reports that discs coated with a thin layer of glue were harder to pull through the hole than uncoated discs.
鈥淲hen you have a sticky membrane, the two sides will touch each other, but they won鈥檛 slip,鈥� says Mellado. With the sides sticking to one another, the disc resists further deformation, and cannot easily curl up to pass through the hole. She suggests that adding a sticky coating to the surfaces of sheet materials that are likely to pass across each other in an impact, such as those used to make cars, could make them more resistant to impacts, without adding much to their weight.
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Such a sticky surface 鈥渃ould make a good impact-absorbing material鈥�, says at the University of Chicago.
