Thickness dependence of telephone cord blister formation in solvent swollen films of polydimethylsiloxane

Sharp, James S.; Roberts, Nathaniel M.

Abstract

The thickness dependence of telephone cord blister formation in thin films of solvent swollen polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was studied using a simple imaging setup. Chloroform was deposited on top of PDMS that had been spin coated on to glass slides coated with a thin wax layer. After an initial thickness dependent nucleation time, straight-sided blisters were observed to form on the films. These later developed into sinusoidal telephone cord blisters. Movies of the growing telephone cord blisters were recorded at 200 fps for PDMS films with thickness values in the range 38 < h ≤ 223 μm. Software written in Python was used to analyse the movies and to extract the thickness dependence of the width of the telephone cord blisters as well as the wavelength of the sinusoidal corrugations and the blister growth rates. Data were interpreted in the context of theories of buckling and dynamic fracture mechanics.

Citation

Sharp, J. S., & Roberts, N. M. (2023). Thickness dependence of telephone cord blister formation in solvent swollen films of polydimethylsiloxane. Soft Matter, 19(40), 7796-7803. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3sm01051a

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 1, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Oct 2, 2023
• Publication Date: Oct 28, 2023
• Deposit Date: Oct 7, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 9, 2023
• Journal: Soft Matter
• Print ISSN: 1744-683X
• Electronic ISSN: 1744-6848
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 40
• Pages: 7796-7803
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d3sm01051a
• Keywords: Condensed Matter Physics; General Chemistry
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/25685491
• Publisher URL: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/SM/D3SM01051A#!divAbstract