Abstract

Fluid-driven delamination or fracturing occurs in a host of materials with applications to the damage of biological tissues, the deformation of engineered materials and the fracture and deformation of the Earth’s crust. This talk will focus on the dynamic spreading of viscous fluids beneath purely elastic and magnetic elastic membranes. Experimental and theoretical studies of the spreading show that bending and in-plane tension within the sheet play particularly crucial roles near the delaminating tip, thereby determining the evolution of a fluid blister beneath thin elastic sheets. The addition of magnetic attraction provides a repeatable laboratory analogue in which to study the dynamics of fluid-driven fracturing. The similarities with the spreading of capillary droplets will be highlighted to highlight the conceptual links between this and previous work.