Surface instability of soft solids under strain

Using a uniaxial deformation setup, we show that the free surface of an homogeneous elastic material is unstable under compression: parallel grooves nucleate orthogonally to the direction of compression when a characteristic stretch ratio a * is reached. We measure experimentally the variation of a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSoft matter Vol. 7; no. 22; pp. 1612 - 1619
Main Authors Mora, S, Abkarian, M, Tabuteau, H, Pomeau, Y
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Royal Society of Chemistry 01.01.2011
Subjects
Condensed Matter
Engineering Sciences
Mechanics
Physics
Soft Condensed Matter
Solid mechanics
HYDROGELS
GELS
RHEOLOGY
PATTERNS
CREASING INSTABILITY
RUBBER
MODEL
TRANSIENT NETWORKS
ELASTIC HALF-SPACE
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Summary:Using a uniaxial deformation setup, we show that the free surface of an homogeneous elastic material is unstable under compression: parallel grooves nucleate orthogonally to the direction of compression when a characteristic stretch ratio a * is reached. We measure experimentally the variation of a * as well as the wavelength of the grooves as a function of the thickness h 0 of the material. All data collapse on single curves when normalizing h 0 by a characteristic length which is the ratio of the surface tension to the shear modulus of the material. This length scale acts as a regularization parameter for the system. We introduce a theoretical model that captures well the features of the instability. The observed nucleation-like process for the grooves development suggests that the instability is subcritical. The instability threshold of the free surface of a homogeneous elastic solid under strain depends on the elastic modulus, the surface tension and the sample height.
ISSN:1744-683X
1744-6848
DOI:10.1039/c1sm06051a