Lubricated wrinkles: imposed constraints affect the dynamics of wrinkle coarsening

Journal article

We study the dynamic coarsening of wrinkles in an elastic sheet that is compressed while lying on a thin layer of viscous liquid. When the ends of the sheet are instantaneously brought together by a small distance, viscous resistance initially prevents the sheet from adopting a globally buckled shape. Instead, the sheet accommodates the compression by wrinkling. Previous scaling arguments suggested that a balance between the sheet’s bending stiffness and viscous effects lead to a wrinkle wavelength λ that increases with time t according to λ ∝ t 1/6 . We show that taking proper account of the compression constraint leads to a logarithmic correction of this result, λ ∝ (t/ log t) 1/6 . This correction is significant over experimentally observable time spans, and leads us to reassess previously published experimental data.

Authors: Kodio, O; Griffiths, I; Vella, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Journal: Physical Review Fluids
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 1
• Article number: 014202
• Publication date: 2017-01-01
• Acceptance date: 2016-12-13
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.014202
• ISSN: 2469-990X