2011/07/27 by Haim Diamant, Thomas A. Witten · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.soft #nlin.SI
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.107.164302
4 pages
arxiv created 2011/07/27 · arxiv updated 2011/10/12
The apparently intractable shape of a fold in a compressed elastic film lying on a fluid substrate is found to have an exact solution. Such systems buckle at a nonzero wavevector set by the bending stiffness of the film and the weight of the substrate fluid. Our solution describes the entire progression from a weakly displaced sinusoidal buckling to a single large fold that contacts itself. The pressure decrease is exactly quadratic in the lateral displacement. We identify a complex wavevector whose magnitude remains invariant with compression.