The Finite Element Simulation Of Surface Wrinkling Of Rigid Films On A Compliant Substrate

Wrinkles is a widely existing phenomenon in nature, such as the morphology ofundulating mountains, dehydrated apples and the surface micro-structure of butterflieslepidoptera, mosquitoes eyes. Such structures have some excellent special properties, such asantifogging function of mosquito eyes, bright structural colours of butterfly wings. It has abroad application prospects in such fields as bionic manufacturing, stretchable electronics andthin-film metrology.In this paper, the commercial finite-element software, ABAQUS, is used to simulatingthe buckling of a thin film resting on a compliant substrate. Linear eigenvalue bucklinganalysis and nonlinear buckling analysis are carried out to study the formation mechanism ofsurface wrinkling, and analyze the dependence relationship of the wrinkling wave-length andinitial geometric parameters (the thickness of the film and substrate, geometric parameters ofmicrostructure, etc.), material parameters (Young’s modulus and thermal expansion coefficient,etc.) and the applied load (temperature, pre-strain).The main contents are as follows:1. According to plane-strain buckling theory, small strain theory and minimum energymethod, this paper describes the analytical solutions of the critical buckling strain, criticalbuckling wavelength and amplitude. At the same time, the buckling analysis methods in theABAQUS software, and the detailed operational steps of eigenvalue buckling analysis andnonlinear buckling analysis are also introduced by simulation examples of surface wrinkling.2. For both cases of very thick and thin substrate, the finite element simulation is used toinvestigate the buckling of a thin film resting on a compliant substrate, and analyze therelationship between the critical wavelength and the material parameters (such as the elasticmodulus, Poisson’s ratio of the film and substrate) and the geometric parameters (such assubstrate thickness). For the case of very thin substrate, the finite element results arecompared with the analytical results obtained by Huang.3. The finite element simulation is used to investigate surface wrinkling ofnanostructured thin films on a compliant substrate, and analyze the relationship between the critical wavelength, critical strain and the material parameters (such as the elastic modulus,Poisson’s ratio of the film and substrate), the geometric parameters of the film and substrate(such as the thickness of the film and substrate) and the geometric parameters of thenanostructure (Semicircle radius and spacing).4.The linear eigenvalue buckling thermal analysis is used to investigate surfacewrinkling of core–shell soft cylinders. The operational steps of linear eigenvalue bucklingthermal analysis is described in detail. In the meantime, the impact of the thickness and elasticmodulus of the film for the critical modes number is also analyzed.