Analysis demonstrates the collapse of liquid drops under surface tension in elastocapillary systems, indicating stable shape outcomes.
A liquid drop connected to thin pliable object produces a deflection. If the volume of the liquid is sufficiently large, the deflection is modest and its shape is unique. Decreasing the volume from this state, however, leads to one of two possible minimal-volume outcomes, depending on the balance of rigidity and surface tension: The structure either returns to its original unstrained configuration or fully collapses to create a stable, highly stressed shape. Using a simple three-dimensional setup arising from self-assembly applications where the deflection is restricted to a single hinge, we characterize all the possible equilibrium shapes and show that the two possibilities arise as a consequence of a codimension-2 cusp bifurcation.
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Camero et al. (2025) studied this question.
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