2005/12/31 by D. A. Head, David Head · 1 citation
Engineering · Neuroscience · Physics and Astronomy · #Buckling #Composite material #Contact angle #Deformation (meteorology) #Dimensionless quantity #Dimple #Evaporation #Geometry #Materials science #Mechanics #Nanomaterials and Printing Technologies #Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies #Optics #Physics #Quasistatic process #Scaling #Shell (structure) #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.74.021601
8 pages, 7 figs. Some extra clarification of a few points, and minor corrections. To appear in Phys. Rev. E
arxiv created 2006/07/10 · openalex publication_date 2006/08/03 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Evaporating droplets of polymer or colloid solution may produce a glassy crust at the liquid-vapor interface, which subsequently deforms as an elastic shell. For sessile droplets, the known radial outward flow of solvent is expected to generate crusts that are thicker near the pinned contact line than the apex. Here we investigate, by nonlinear quasistatic simulation and scaling analysis, the deformation mode and stability properties of elastic caps with a nonuniform thickness profile. By suitably scaling the mean thickness and the contact angle between crust and substrate, we find that data collapse onto a master curve for both buckling pressure and deformation mode, thus allowing us to predict when the deformed shape is a dimple, Mexican hat, and so on. This master curve is parameterized by a dimensionless measure of the nonuniformity of the shell. We also speculate on how overlapping time scales for gelation and deformation may alter our findings.