The effect of shear and confinement on the buckling of particle-laden interfaces

In this paper, we investigate the buckling of an air-water interface populated by lycopodium powder particles using a specially designed Langmuir trough with side walls that deformed affinely with the particle-laden interface in order to minimize the effect of shear during compression. Confinement effects from the side walls were studied by systematically reducing the width of the Langmuir trough and measuring the buckling wavelength. For interfaces wider than 20 mm, the bulk wavelength was found to be independent of interface width. Due to the presence of contact line friction along the sidewall, the amplitude and wavelength of the wrinkles near the side walls were found to be reduced by a factor two compared with the bulk. A cascade in wavelength was observed as one moved from the center of the particle-laden interface towards the sidewalls similar to what has been observed for thin floating polymer films. For interface widths less than 20 mm, the wavelength of the wrinkles in the bulk was found to decrease eventually approaching the wavelength measured along the side walls. The wavelength at the walls was not affected by confinement. At large compressive strains, a transition from wrinkles to folds was observed. These regions of strain localization formed as a train of folds shortly after the onset of wrinkling and grew in amplitude with increasing compression. Confinement was also found to have an impact on folding. To study the impact of shear during interface compression, a series of objects including circular cylinders and rectangular prisms were placed through the center of the particle-laden interface before compression. These objects enhanced wrinkling and folding upstream of the object, eliminated wrinkling and folding in a broad region downstream of the object, and realigned the wrinkles along the side of the immobile obstacles where shear strains were maximum.