Emergence of instability-driven domains in soft stratified materials

Li, Jian, Slesarenko, Viacheslav, & Rudykh, Stephan. (2022). Emergence of instability-driven domains in soft stratified materials. npj Computational Materials, 8(1), 100. doi:10.1038/s41524-022-00783-x

Abstract

Nature frequently employs the buckling phenomenon to facilitate the formation of complicated patterns across length-scales. Current knowledge, however, is limited to a small set of buckling-induced microstructure transformations in soft composites; and the pattern formation phenomenon remains largely unknown for a vast pool of material morphologies. Here, we investigate the unexplored rich domain of soft heterogeneous composites. We experimentally observe the formation of instability-driven domains in stratified composites with a non-dilute stiff phase. We illustrate that the discovered domain patterns are energetically favorable over wrinkling. Moreover, we introduce a closed-form analytical expression allowing us to predict the evolution of the patterns in the post-buckling regime. Finally, we show that various patterns can be pre-designed via altering material compositions. These findings can help advance our understanding of the mechanisms governing pattern formations in soft biological tissues, and potentially enable the platform for mechanical metamaterials.

Funder

European Research Council
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Publisher

Nature Research

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IE

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Collections

Mathematics (Scholarly Articles)