This paper develops a theoretical model for wrinkling of an elastic film on an elastic–plastic metal layer caused by cyclic temperatures. The film is compressively strained and bonded to the metal layer, which in turn lies on a thick substrate. The thermal expansion mismatch between the metal and the substrate induces a biaxial stress, which is assumed to be large enough to cause the metal to d...

The protein hydrophobin HFBII self-assembles into very elastic films at the surface of water; these films wrinkle readily upon compression. We demonstrate and study this wrinkling instability in the context of non-planar interfaces by forming HFBII layers at the surface of bubbles whose interfaces are then compressed by deflation of the bubble. By varying the initial concentration of the hydrop...

This paper develops a theoretical model for wrinkling of an elastic film on a viscoelastic layer. The film is elastic and subjected to a compressive residual strain. The viscoelastic layer is sandwiched between the film and a rigid substrate. The nonlinear von Karman plate theory is employed to model the film, and a thin-layer approximation is adopted for the viscoelastic layer. The stability o...

If a body with a stiffer surface layer is loaded in compression, a surface wrinkling instability may be developed. A bifurcation analysis is presented for determining the critical load for the onset of wrinkling and the associated wavelength for materials in which the elastic modulus is an arbitrary function of depth. The analysis leads to an eigenvalue problem involving a pair of linear ordina...

How much energy does it take to stamp a thin elastic shell flat? Motivated by recent experiments on the wrinkling patterns of floating shells, we develop rigorous method via $\Gamma$-convergence for answering this question leading order in shell's thickness and other small parameters. The observed involve "ordered" regions well-defined wrinkles alongside "disordered" whose local features are le...

We report a time-resolved approach to probe the mechanical properties of thin films during drying and solidification based on surface wrinkling. The approach is demonstrated by measuring the modulus of a ternary system comprising an inorganic salt (aluminum chlorohydrate), a humectant (glycerol), and water across the glassy film formation pathway. The topography of mechanically induced wrinklin...

We study the peculiar wrinkling pattern of an elastic plate stamped into a spherical mold. We show that the wavelength of the wrinkles decreases with their amplitude, but reaches a minimum when the amplitude is of the order of the thickness of the plate. The force required for compressing the wrinkled plate presents a maximum independent of the thickness. A model is derived and verified experim...