Tearing of thin sheets: Cracks interacting through an elastic ridge

We study the interaction between two cracks propagating quasistatically during the tearing of a thin brittle sheet. We show that the cracks attract each other following a path described by a power law resulting from the competition between elastic and fracture energies. The power law exponent (8 /11 ) is in close agreement with experiments. We also show that a second (asymptotic) regime, with an exponent of 9 /8 , emerges for small distances between the two crack tips due to the finite transverse curvature of the elastic ridge joining them.