Bending Response of a Book with Internal Friction

We study the bending of a book-like system, comprising stack elastic plates coupled through friction. The behavior this layered system is rich and nontrivial, with non-additive enhancement apparent stiffness significant hysteretic response. A dimension reduction procedure employed to develop centerline-based theory describing as non-linear planar rod internal shear. consider coupling between nonlinear geometry elasticity stacked plates, treating interlayer friction perturbatively. This model yields predictions for stack's mechanical response in three-point that are excellent agreement our experiments. Remarkably, we find energy dissipated during deformation can be rationalized over three orders magnitude, including regimes thick large deflection. robust dissipative mechanism could harnessed design new classes low-cost efficient damping devices.