Wrinkling suppression in thin membranes using designed geometrical features

The rapidly increasing use of thin membranes; especially in the fabrication of flexible electronics, has motivated investigating the wrinkling behavior of these membranes. Wrinkling has an undesirable effect since wrinkles degrade the surface accuracy of structures incorporating thin membranes. This work introduces and evaluates an approach based on including optimized geometric features in thin membranes to suppress their wrinkling behavior. The ability of the optimized geometric features to suppress wrinkling in a 25 mu m thick polyimide membrane subjected to uniaxial stretching is investigated computationally and experimentally in this work. A finite element model is developed to predict the wrinkling behavior of the membrane. An experimental setup equipped with 3D digital image correlation system is used to determine the wrinkles pattern, amplitude, and wavelength. Symmetric circular holes are introduced in the membrane to redistribute the stress field, eliminate the fluctuation in the minor principal stress in the membrane, and suppress wrinkles. The location and size of the circular holes are determined by coupling the Non-Linear Programming by Quadratic Largrangian technique and finite element simulations. An optimal design is obtained and the experimental results show that the optimally designed holes effectively suppressed the wrinkling behavior.