Abstract
We study the formation of localized structures formed by the point loading of an internally pressurized elastic shell. While unpressurized shells (such as a ping-pong ball) buckle into polygonal structures, we show that pressurized shells are subject to a wrinkling instability. We study wrinkling in depth, presenting scaling laws for the critical indentation at which wrinkling occurs and the number of wrinkles formed in terms of the internal pressurization and material properties of the shell. These results are validated by numerical simulations. We show that the evolution of the wrinkle length with increasing indentation can be understood for highly pressurized shells from membrane theory. These results suggest that the position and number of wrinkles may be used in combination to give simple methods for the estimation of the mechanical properties of highly pressurized shells. © 2011 American Physical Society.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue number | 17 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 20 2011 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): KUK-C1-013-04
Acknowledgements: This publication was based on work supported in part by Grant No. KUK-C1-013-04, made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). A. A. and A. V. are thankful for the support of NSF CMMI Grant No. 1065759. A. B. was supported by ANR-10-BLAN-1516. We are grateful to E. du Pontavice for his assistance with the experimental aspects, M. Hallworth for help with Fig. 1, and B. Davidovitch for discussions.
This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.