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Spinodal surface instability of soft elastic thin films

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Abstract

When the thicknesses of thin films reduce to microns or even nanometers, surface energy and surface interaction often play a significant role in their deformation behavior and surface morphology. The spinodal surface instability induced by the van der Waals force in a soft elastic thin film perfectly bonded to a rigid substrate is investigated theoretically using the bifurcation theory of elastic structures. The analytical solution is derived for the critical condition of spinodal surface morphology instability by accounting for the competition of the van der Waals interaction energy, elastic strain energy and surface energy. Detailed examinations on the effect of surface energy, thickness and elastic properties of the film show that the characteristic wavelength of the deformation bifurcation mode depends on the film thickness via an exponential relation, with the power index in the range from 0.749 to 1.0. The theoretical solution has a good agreement with relevant experiment results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Shi Qing Huang & Xi Qiao Feng

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  1. Shi Qing Huang
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  2. Xi Qiao Feng
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Correspondence to Xi Qiao Feng.

Additional information

The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10525210 and 10732050) and 973 Project (2004CB619303).

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Huang, S., Feng, X. Spinodal surface instability of soft elastic thin films. Acta Mech Sin 24, 289–296 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-008-0138-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-008-0138-1

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