The Buckling of a Swollen Thin Gel Layer Bound to a Compliant Substrate

Gels are used to design bilayered structures with high residual stresses. The swelling of a thin layer on a compliant substrate leads to compressive stresses. The postbuckling of this layer is investigated experimentally; the wavelengths and amplitudes of the resulting modes are measured. A simplified model with a self-avoiding rod on a Winkler foundation is in semiquantitative agreement with experiments and reproduces the observed cusplike folds.