Beyond uni-directional hierarchical wrinkle formation

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Andreas Fery; Professor Dr. Oliver Sander
• Subject Area: Polymer Materials ; Experimental and Theoretical Physics of Polymers
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 386450667

This project aims at understanding hierarchical wrinkle formation of substrate-supported thin films. In contrast to the predecessor project, which was aiming at wrinkles that show one preferred direction resulting from uni-axial deformation, more complex bi-axial and temporally controlled load scenarios will be investigated. Further, we want to expand the developed masking approach towards 2D patterned hierarchical wrinkling. To do so we will develop novel experimental setups to control complex bi-directional loading patterns in combination with a masking approach. We will complement the experimental investigations by detailed finite element simulations. These will focus on novel variational formulations of viscoelastic material behavior and on the detailed study of wrinkle formation by bifurcation analysis. This will allow the determination and temporal control, and study of the resulting complex 2D wrinkling patterns.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants