Capillary control of collapse in soft composite columns
Abstract
Euler buckling is the elastic instability of a column subjected to longitudinal compression forces at its ends. The buckling instability occurs when the compressing load reaches a critical value and an infinitesimal fluctuation leads to a large amplitude deflection. Since Euler's original study, this process has been extensively studied in homogeneous, isotropic, linear-elastic solids. Here, we examine the nature of the buckling in inhomogeneous soft composite materials. In particular, we consider a soft host with liquid inclusions both large and small relative to the elastocapillarity length, which lead to softening and stiffening of a homogeneous composite respectively. However, by imposing a gradient of the inclusion volume fraction or by varying the inclusion size we can deliberately manipulate the spatial structure of the composite properties of a column and thereby control the nature of Euler buckling.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2005.09497,
title = {Capillary control of collapse in soft composite columns},
author = {Marc Suñé and John S. Wettlaufer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.09497},
year = {2021}
}