Self-crumpling elastomers: bending induced by the drying stimulus of a nanoparticle suspension

Abstract

We report an experimental study of the drying-induced peeling of a bilayer, consisting of an elastomeric disk coated with a suspension of nanoparticles. We show that although capillary forces associated with the scale of the droplet can not compete with the adhesion of the elastomer on a surface, nevertheless large tensile stresses develop in the coating, which results in a moment bending the bilayer. We attribute this stress to the nano-menisci in the pores of the colloidal material and we propose a model that describes successfully the early stage curvature of the bilayer. Thus, we show that the peeling can be conveniently controlled by the particle size and the coating thickness.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, accepted in EPL

References in corpus (4)

• Capillary origami: spontaneous wrapping of a droplet with an elastic sheet
• Elastocapillary Snapping: Capillarity Induces Snap-Through Instabilities in Small Elastic Beams
• The bending of an elastic beam by a liquid drop: A variational approach
• Effect of a non-volatile cosolvent on crack pattern induced by desiccation of a colloidal gel

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Water-based peeling of thin hydrophobic films
• Water transfer and crack regimes in nano-colloidal gels
• Effect of the polydispersity of a colloidal drop on the drying induced stress as measured by the buckling of a floating sheet