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Pattern Formation In Floating Sheets, Hunter King

Open Access Dissertations

This thesis presents a study of two basic modes of deformation of a thin sheet: wrinkling and crumpling, viewed primarily in the context of an elastic sheet confined by capillary forces on a drop of liquid.

First, it provides a brief conceptual background in the relevant physics of thin sheet mechanics and capillarity and introduces the general principles of wrinkling and crumpling.

The problem of confining a circular sheet on an increasingly curved spherical drop is presented as a vehicle to explore these principles. At finite curvature, the sheet is seen to wrinkle around its outer edge. At large confinement, …