Primary and secondary instabilities in soft bilayered systems

Abstract

Wrinkling phenomena emerging from mechanical instabilities in inhomogeneously compressed soft bilayered systems can evoke a wide variety of surface morphologies. Applications range from undesired instabilities in engineering structures such as sandwich panels, via fabricating surfaces with controlled buckling patterns of unique properties, to wrinkling phenomena in living matter such as lungs, mucosas, and brain convolutions. While moderate compression evokes periodic sinusoidal wrinkles, higher compression induces secondary instabilities ‐ the surface bifurcates into increasingly complex morphologies. Periodic wrinkling has already been extensively studied, but the rich pattern formation in the highly nonlinear post‐buckling regime remains poorly understood. Here, we establish a computational model of differential growth to explore the evolving buckling pattern of a growing layer bonded to a non‐growing substrate. Our model provides a mechanistic understanding of growth‐induced primary and secondary instabilities. We show that amongst all possible secondary bifurcations, the mode of period‐doubling is energetically favorable. We experimentally validate our numerical results by examining buckling of a compressed polymer film on a soft foundation. Our computational studies have broad applications in the microfabrication of distinct surface patterns as well as in the morphogenesis of living systems, where growth is progressive and the formation of structural instabilities is critical to biological function. (© 2015 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)