Periodic necking of misfit hyperelastic filaments embedded in a soft matrix

The necking instability is a precursor to tensile failure and rupture of materials. A quasistatically loaded free-standing uniaxial specimen typically exhibits necking at a single location, thus corresponding to a long wavelength bifurcation mode. If confined to a substrate or embedded in a matrix the same filament can exhibit periodic necking and fragmentation thus creating segments of finite length. While such periodic instabilities have been extensively studied in ductile metal filaments and thin sheets, less is known about necking in hyperelastic materials. Nonetheless, in recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the role of necking in novel materials, for the advancement of fabrication processes and to explain fragmentation phenomena observed in 3D printed active biological matter. In both cases materials are not well described by the existing frameworks that employ J2 deformation theory of plasticity, and existing studies do not account for the significant role of misfit stretches that may emerge in these systems through chemical, or biological contraction. To address these limitations, in this paper we begin by experimentally demonstrating the role of the surrounding matrix on the necking and fragmentation of a compliant filament embedded in a tunable rubber matrix. Using a generalized hyperelastic model with strain softening, our analytical bifurcation analysis explains the experimental observations and is shown to agree with numerical predictions. The analysis reveals three distinct bifurcation modes: the long wavelength necking, thus recovering the Considère criterion; the periodic necking observed in our experiments; and a short wavelength mode that is characterized by localization along the center cord of the filament and is independent of the film-to-matrix stiffness ratio. We find that the softening coefficient and the filament misfit stretch can significantly influence the stability threshold and observed wavelength, respectively. Our results can guide the design and fabrication of novel composite materials and can explain the fragmentation processes observed in active biological materials.