bulge test

Dear iMechanicians, 

Dear iMechanicians, I would like to share our recent work on the poking and bulging of elastic thin sheets that were inspired by the classical indentation test and bulge test. Under clamped boundaries, there have been well-established theories and well-controlled experiments in this field.

Bulge test is an effective technique to measure the mechanical properties of thin films. As the membrane size decreases to nano-scale, the surface effect plays a significant role in determining the mechanical behavior of the membrane, and the techniques commonly used to measure the bulk materials properties are not applicable. We explore the surface effect on the nano-scale bulge test using combined continuum theories and atomistic simulations. We formulate the load-deflection relation by incorporating the surface effect and analyze its size-dependent behavior. The present theoretical model is in quantitative agreement with the molecular dynamics simulations.