Re: Why does measuring tape bend one way?

From: Ken Muldrew (kmuldrezw_at_ucalgazry.ca)
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:16:35 GMT

"Edward Green" <spamspamspam3@netzero.com> wrote:

>Now, to add something, I notice in actual experiment that slowly
>bending a length of measuring tape in the hard direction causes a
>slight flattening in the area of subsequent buckling, followed by a
>sharp snap to the buckled position; slowly releasing the bending moment
>eventually causes a snap back to the unbuckled shaped. The system is
>bistable (obviously), and exhibits hysterisis.

You may be interested to know that there is a "jam side down" physical
law with respect to measuring tapes. Every measurement where you are
unable to support the tape easily is just far enough to cause
buckling. There has never been a demonstrated exception to this rule.

Ken Muldrew
kmuldrezw@ucalgazry.ca
(remove all letters after y in the alphabet)

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