Nonlinear analyses of wrinkles in a film bonded to a compliant substrate

Subject to a compressive membrane force, a film bonded to a compliant substrate often forms a pattern of wrinkles. This paper studies such wrinkles in a layered structure used in several recent experiments. The structure comprises a stiff film bonded to a compliant substrate, which in turn is bonded to a rigid support. Two types of analyses are performed. First, for sinusoidal wrinkles, by minimizing energy, we obtain the wavelength and the amplitude of the wrinkles for substrates of various moduli and thicknesses. Second, we develop a method to simultaneously evolve the two-dimensional pattern in the film and the three-dimensional elastic field in the substrate. The simulations show that the wrinkles can evolve into stripes, labyrinths, or herringbones, depending on the anisotropy of the membrane forces. Statistical averages of the amplitude and wavelength of wrinkles of various patterns correlate well with the analytical solution of the sinusoidal wrinkles.