Tape loop gets smaller when peeled back

When you fold a piece of sticky tape together such that the two sticky sides form a contact, you get a loop. Now if you want to unloop the loop by peeling back on the ends, you see that the tape loop does not break open immediately, but that the loop becomes smaller and smaller before it finally unloops. Apparently the contact zone 'rolls' along the tape and new contact is being formed at the loop side while the contact zone at the peeling side breaks open. Last year I did research to this phenoma as a side project of my PhD. Here are the final results: https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/134/56001 YT: https://youtu.be/aSufU6W8xxU Press Release: https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/24-08-2021-how-to-unloop-a-sticky-loop/