On critical value for surface tension-driven instability of a soft composite cylinder

Abstract

Inspired by recent researches on the critical value for surface tension-driven instability of soft cylindrical solids characterized by infinite axial wavelength, the present work studies the existence of axially uniform non-zero solutions of the homogeneous problem of a composite cylinder with surface/interface tensions. The critical condition is examined for several cases of major interest based on linear elastic models with two different versions of surface/interface conditions. It is shown that the critical values for surface tension-driven instability of cylindrical solids reported in recent literature for several cases of major interest can be recovered by the present analysis of axially uniform axisymmetric solutions of a composite cylinder within the framework of generalized plane strain. In particular, the present analysis confirms that the critical values derived based on the two different versions of surface/interface conditions can be drastically different, and this discrepancy between different theoretical models deserves further investigation.