Wrinkling behavior of highly stretched rectangular elastic films via parametric global bifurcation (Q379911)

The authors investigate the wrinkling of thin elastic films under high tension. While previous investigations used the Föppl-von Kármán plate equations, in this article the equations are modified to take the finite strain in the pre-buckling state into account. With these improvements the solution structure changes considerably: The wrinkling occurs only for a certain range of length to width aspect ratios and is constrained to a region close to the centerline. Further it turns out that globally an isola bifurcation occurs: For tensions significantly higher than the critical value the wrinkling decays and vanishes at a second pitchfork bifurcation. Moreover it turns out that due to the reflectional symmetry of the problem symmetric and antisymmetric solutions bifurcate at the same tension. By a homotopy method the authors can show that a continuous family of solutions, containing these two solution types, exists at the same parameter values. In this very well readable article it is demonstrated that by proper reformulation of the governing differential equations and carefully applying numerical methods realistic and unexpected solutions can be found, contributing to a deeper understanding of the mechanical problem.