A simply analytic study of buckled thin films on compliant substrates

Buckling of stiff thin films on compliant substrates enables many new applications, such as stretchable electronics. Song et al. [2008, "Buckling of a Stiff Thin Film on a Compliant Substrate in Large Deformation," Int. J. Solids Struct., 45(10), pp. 3107-3121] developed a finite deformation theory to explain the buckled amplitude and wavelength very well. This theory not only accounts for finite geometry change, but also the finite strain and a nonlinear constitutive model for the substrate. To provide a better physical insight, this paper investigates those three effects, and shows that finite geometry change dominates in the finite deformation theory and the simplified analysis leads to results that agree well with experiments and the finite element method.