The boundary effects on stretch-induced membrane wrinkling

Abstract

Abstract This paper aims to study the boundary effects on stretch-induced membrane wrinkling. Towards this end, several typical distributions of tensile loads, that are applied at the short ends of rectangular membranes, are investigated, which produce a system of forces statically equivalent to force and moment. In addition, we explore the relevance of a dimensionless parameter to the buckling loads for these loading cases. By analyzing the critical buckling loads, it is found that small differences in loading conditions lead to critical loads that can differ up to three orders of magnitudes. Besides, the dimensionless parameter is almost constant near bifurcation points independently from boundary conditions. Based on this property, a simple expression is proposed to fast predict the critical load of membrane wrinkling. This paper may provide a simple way to delay or avoid the occurrence of wrinkles by just changing the boundary conditions.