We report a combined experimental and theoretical study of the compression of a solid foam coated with a thin elastic film. Past a critical compression threshold, a pattern of localized folds emerges with a characteristic size that is imposed by an instability of the thin surface film. We perform optical surface measurements of the statistical properties of these localization zones and find that they are characterized by robust exponential tails in the strain distributions. Following a hybrid continuum and statistical approach, we develop a theory that accurately describes the nucleation and length scale of these structures and predicts the characteristic strains associated with the localized regions.
Touradj Ebrahimi, Michela Testolina, Davi Nachtigall Lazzarotto
Daniele Mari, Lucas Eric Jacques Degeneve
Touradj Ebrahimi, Davi Nachtigall Lazzarotto, Bowen Huang