Evolving wrinkles: time-dependent buckling of an elastic sheet on a liquid substrate

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Netherwood, Daniel J., Humphries, Ben S., Robbins, Connor, O'Kiely, Doireann
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Netherwood, Daniel J.
Humphries, Ben S.
Robbins, Connor
O'Kiely, Doireann
author_facet Netherwood, Daniel J.
Humphries, Ben S.
Robbins, Connor
O'Kiely, Doireann
contents We model the formation and evolution of wrinkles in a floating elastic sheet under uniaxial compression. This is a canonical setup in the study of wrinkling, and whilst its static equilibrium configuration is well characterised, its dynamics are not. In this work, we focus on modelling the transition from early, inertia-dominated wrinkle growth to late-time gravity-moderated equilibrium. For an initial configuration in which the sheet is flat, an initial disturbance will first grow at the shortest available wavelengths, because this requires the least kinetic energy, but will subsequently transition to a longer preferred wavelength that minimises potential energy. We observe that the evolving wave pattern must be a spectrum, as opposed to a fundamental wrinkle mode whose wavelength evolves in time. Our results demonstrate that changes in the dominant wrinkle wavelength are coupled to a decay in the compressive force, which is to be expected from equilibrium theory.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_26529
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Evolving wrinkles: time-dependent buckling of an elastic sheet on a liquid substrate
Netherwood, Daniel J.
Humphries, Ben S.
Robbins, Connor
O'Kiely, Doireann
Fluid Dynamics
We model the formation and evolution of wrinkles in a floating elastic sheet under uniaxial compression. This is a canonical setup in the study of wrinkling, and whilst its static equilibrium configuration is well characterised, its dynamics are not. In this work, we focus on modelling the transition from early, inertia-dominated wrinkle growth to late-time gravity-moderated equilibrium. For an initial configuration in which the sheet is flat, an initial disturbance will first grow at the shortest available wavelengths, because this requires the least kinetic energy, but will subsequently transition to a longer preferred wavelength that minimises potential energy. We observe that the evolving wave pattern must be a spectrum, as opposed to a fundamental wrinkle mode whose wavelength evolves in time. Our results demonstrate that changes in the dominant wrinkle wavelength are coupled to a decay in the compressive force, which is to be expected from equilibrium theory.
title Evolving wrinkles: time-dependent buckling of an elastic sheet on a liquid substrate
topic Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26529