Size-dependent response of ultra-thin films with surface effects

A modified continuum model of elastic films with nano-scale thickness is proposed by incorporating surface elasticity into the conventional nonlinear Von Karman plate theory. By using Hamilton’s principle, the governing equations and boundary conditions of the ultra-thin film including surface effects are derived within the Kirchhoff’s assumption, where the effects of non-zero normal stress and large deflection are taken into account simultaneously. The present model is then applied to studying the bending, buckling and free vibration of simply supported micro/nano-scale thin films in-plane strains and explicit exact solutions can be obtained for these three cases. The size-dependent mechanical behavior of the thin film due to surface effects is well elucidated in the obtained solutions.     

Modelling of length scale effects in viscoelastic materials

A length scale dependent linear viscoelastic constitutive model is developed. First, a generalized Maxwell model that can describe standard linear viscoelasticity is considered. The model is then generalized to include effects of viscous strain gradients. The formulation of additional boundary conditions resulting from the strain gradient terms is discussed. It is shown that the boundary conditions can be formulated in terms of a surface energy. As an example, the thermal expansion of a thin polymeric film on an elastic substrate is analyzed. It is shown that the relative thermal expansion in the thickness direction of the film decreases for sufficiently small film thicknesses, in accordance with experimental observations. This effect cannot be captured by a standard thermo-viscoelastic theory, which gives a constant thermal expansion independent of film thickness.     

A film flow model for analysing gravity-driven,thin wavy fluid films

To analyse the physics underlying gravity-driven runoff of thin wavy films, a film flow model is developed, and is solved with computational fluid dynamics. This model is based on the lubrication theory, and takes into account the gravitational, wall shear and surface tension forces. A key characteristic of the model is that it assumes only one computational cell over the film height, which enables studying film flow on larger computational domains. A main aim of this study is to perform a detailed validation of the numerical model. The film flow model is validated against several experiments of gravity-driven, thin fluid films on smooth surfaces. The time-averaged film thickness and the fluid speed profiles predicted by the model show very good agreement with experimental results. Similarly, the film flow model is able to predict the wave speeds with sufficient accuracy. The energy spectra of the waves, where higher frequency waves are present in film flows at higher Reynolds numbers, show an exponentially decaying trend at these high frequencies. The model performs better than the Nusselt equation for film flows, which under-predicts the time-averaged film thickness and over-predicts the time-averaged fluid speeds, even for flows at low Reynolds numbers. The film flow model is compared qualitatively for fingering behaviour. This model also allows to investigate film flows on large surfaces, which can be rough, curved and of complex geometrical shape.     

Thin plate theory including surface effects

In the paper, a general thin plate theory including surface effects, which can be used for size-dependent static and dynamic analysis of plate-like thin film structures, is proposed. This theory is a modification and generalization of the thin plate model in [Lim, C.W., He, L.H., 2004. Size-dependent nonlinear response of thin elastic films with nanoscale thickness. Int. J. Mech. Sci. 46, 1715–1726]. With the general theory, the governing equations of Kirchoff and Mindlin plate models including surface effects are derived, respectively. Some numerical examples are provided to verify the validities of the theory.     

Determining the Elastic Modulus of Compliant Thin Films Supported on Substrates from Flat Punch Indentation Measurements

Instrumented indentation is a technique that can be used to measure the elastic properties of soft thin films supported on stiffer substrates, including polymer films, cellulosic sheets, and thin layers of biological materials. When measuring thin film properties using indentation, the effect of the substrate must be considered. Most existing models for determining the properties of thin films from indentation measurements were developed for metal and dielectric films bonded to semiconductor substrates and have been applied to systems with film-substrate modulus ratios between 0.1 and 10. In the present work, flat punch indentation of a thin film either bonded to or in contact with a substrate is examined using finite element modeling. A broad range of film-substrate modulus ratios from 0.0001 to 1 are investigated. As the substrate is effectively rigid compared to the film when the film-substrate modulus ratio is less than 0.0001, the results are also useful for understanding systems with lower film-substrate modulus ratios. The effects of the contact radius, film thickness, elastic properties, and friction between the film and the substrate on the measured stiffness were quantified using finite element modeling in order to understand how the elastic properties of the film can be extracted from indentation measurements. A semi-analytical model was developed to describe the finite element modeling results and facilitate the use of the results to analyze experimental measurements. The model was validated through analysis of indentation measurements of thin polyethylene sheets that were supported on substrates of various stiffness.     

Wrinkling of a charged elastic film on a viscous layer

A thin metallic film deposited on a compliant polymeric substrate begins to wrinkle under compression induced in curing process and afterwards cooling of the system. The wrinkle mode depends upon the thin film elasticity, thickness, compressive strain, as well as mechanical properties of the compliant substrate. This paper presents a simple model to study the modulation of the wrinkle mode of thin metallic films bonded on viscous layers in external electric field. During the procedure, linear perturbation analysis was performed for determining the characteristic relation that governs the evolution of the plane-strain wrinkle of the thin films under varying conditions, i.e., the maximally unstable wrinkle mode as a function of the film surface charge, film elasticity and thickness, misfit strain, as well as thickness and viscosity of the viscous layer. It shows that, in proper electric field, thin film may wrinkle subjected to either compression or tension. Therefore, external electric field can be employed to modulate the wrinkle mode of thin films. The present results can be used as the theoretical basis for wrinkling analysis and mode modulation in surface metallic coatings, drying adhesives and paints, and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), etc.     

Analysis of Constitutive Assumptions for the Strain Energy of a Generalized Elastic Membrane in a Nonlinear Contact Problem

For very thin shell-like structures it is common to ignore bending effects and model the structure using simple membrane theory. However, since the thickness of the membrane is not modeled explicitly in simple membrane theory it is not possible to use the three-dimensional strain energy function directly. Approximations must be introduced like the assumptions of: no thickness changes, generalized plane stress or incompressibility. In contrast, the theory of a Cosserat generalized membrane uses the three-dimensional strain energy function directly, it includes both thickness changes and shear deformation and it allows contact conditions to be formulated on the interface of the membrane with another body instead of on the middle surface of the membrane. A specific nonlinear contact problem is used to study these effects and comparison is made with solutions of a hierarchy of theories which include different levels of deformation through the thickness of the membrane and different formulations of the contact conditions. The results indicate that within the context of a simple membrane the assumption of generalized plane stress is best for this problem and that a generalized contact condition extends the range validity of the simple membrane solution to thicker membranes.     

Spontaneous instability of soft thin films on curved substrates due to van der Waals interaction

The linear bifurcation theory is used to investigate the stability of soft thin films bonded to curved substrates. It is found that such a film can spontaneously lose its stability due to van der Waals or electrostatic interaction when its thickness reduces to the order of microns or nanometers. We first present the generic method for analyzing the surface stability of a thin film interacting with the substrate and then discuss several important geometric configurations with either a positive or negative mean curvature. The critical conditions for the onset of spontaneous instability in these representative examples are established analytically. Besides the surface energy and Poisson's ratio of the thin film, the curvature of the substrate is demonstrated to have a significant influence on the wrinkling behavior of the film. The results suggest that one may fabricate nanopatterns or enhance the surface stability of soft thin films on curved solid surfaces by modulating the mechanical properties of the films and/or such geometrical properties as film thickness and substrate curvature. This study can also help to understand various phenomena associated with surface instability.     

Closed-form solutions for free vibration of rectangular FGM thin plates resting on elastic foundation

This article presents closed-form solutions for the frequency analysis of rectangular functionally graded material(FGM) thin plates subjected to initially in-plane loads and with an elastic foundation. Based on classical thin plate theory, the governing differential equations are derived using Hamilton's principle. A neutral surface is used to eliminate stretching–bending coupling in FGM plates on the basis of the assumption of constant Poisson's ratio. The resulting governing equation of FGM thin plates has the same form as homogeneous thin plates. The separation-ofvariables method is adopted to obtain solutions for the free vibration problems of rectangular FGM thin plates with separable boundary conditions, including, for example, clamped plates. The obtained normal modes and frequencies are in elegant closed forms, and present formulations and solutions are validated by comparing present results with those in the literature and finite element method results obtained by the authors. A parameter study reveals the effects of the power law index n and aspect ratio a/b on frequencies.     

Nonlinear transient isogeometric analysis of smart piezoelectric functionally graded material plates based on generalized shear deformation theory under thermo-electro-mechanical loads

We present a generalized shear deformation theory in combination with isogeometric (IGA) approach for nonlinear transient analysis of smart piezoelectric functionally graded material (FGM) plates. The nonlinear transient formulation for plates is formed in the total Lagrange approach based on the von Kármán strains, which includes thermo-piezoelectric effects, and solved by Newmark time integration scheme. The electric potential through the thickness of each piezoelectric layer is assumed to be linear. The material properties vary through the thickness of FGM according to the rule of mixture and the Mori–Tanaka schemes. Various numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Thickness effects in polycrystalline thin films: Surface constraint versus interior constraint

The uniaxial tension behavior of polycrystalline thin films, in which all grain boundaries (GBs) are penetrable by dislocations, is investigated by two-dimensional discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) method with a penetrable dislocation-GB interaction model. In order to study thickness effect on the tensile strength of thin films with and without surface treatment, three types of thin films are comparatively considered, including the thin films without surface treatment, with surface passivation layers (SPLs) of nanometer thickness and with surface grain refinement zones (SGRZs) consisting of nano-sized grains. Our results show that thickness effects and their underlying dislocation mechanisms are quite distinct among different types of thin films. The thicker thin films without surface treatment are stronger than the thinner ones; however, opposite thickness effects are captured in the thin films with SPLs or SGRZs. Moreover, the underlying dislocation mechanisms of the same thickness effects of thin films with SPLs and SGRZs are different. In the thin films with SPLs, the thickness effect is caused by the sharp increase of dislocation density near the film-passivation interface, while it is mainly due to the sharp decrease of dislocation density within the refined surface grains of the thin films with SGRZs. No matter in what type of thin films, thickness effect gradually disappears when the number of grains in the thickness direction is large enough. Our analysis reveals that general mechanism of those thickness effects lies in the competition between the exterior surface-constraint and interior GB-constraint on gliding dislocations.     

Indentation of a hard film on a soft substrate: Strain gradient hardening effects

The strain gradient work hardening is important in micro-indentation of bulk metals and thin metallic films, though the indentation of thin films may display very different behavior from that of bulk metals. We use the conventional theory of mechanism-based strain gradient plasticity (CMSG) to study the indentation of a hard tungsten film on soft aluminum substrate, and find good agreement with experiments. The effect of friction stress (intrinsic lattice resistance), which is important in body-center-cubic tungsten, is accounted for. We also extend CMSG to a finite deformation theory since the indentation depth in experiments can be as large as the film thickness. Contrary to indentation of bulk metals or soft metallic films on hard substrate, the micro-indentation hardness of a hard tungsten film on soft aluminum substrate decreases monotonically with the increasing depth of indentation, and it never approaches a constant (macroscopic hardness). It is also shown that the strain gradient effect in the soft aluminum substrate is insignificant, but that in the hard tungsten thin film is important in shallow indentation. The strain gradient effect in tungsten, however, disappears rapidly as the indentation depth increases because the intrinsic material length in tungsten is rather small.     

单畴外延铁电薄膜的相结构与稳定性

本文采用动态金茨堡-朗道（DGL）方程研究了薄膜厚度与错配应变对 取向单畴外延PbTiO3（PTO）铁电薄膜相结构与稳定性的影响。结合平面内松弛应变（等效应变）、表面效应与退极化场等机电耦合边界条件,通过数值求解DGL方程获得外延单畴铁电薄膜错配应变-厚度相图和错配应变-温度相图。数值分析结果显示,由于生成的界面位错松弛了薄膜内错配应变,在理论高应变区相图与传统分析结果有较大差别,文中发现在更广的理论错配拉应变区出现稳定的四方相（c相）结构和单斜相（r相）结构。结果也显示,随着薄膜厚度的减小,表面效应与退极化效应会把顺电相扩展到更低温度区域,从而压缩稳定的铁电相存在的温度区域。     

Two-dimensional equations for thin-films of ionic conductors

A theoretical model is developed for predicting both conduction and diffusion in thin-film ionic conductors or cables. With the linearized Poisson-Nernst-Planck (PNP) theory, the two-dimensional (2D) equations for thin ionic conductor films are obtained from the three-dimensional (3D) equations by power series expansions in the film thickness coordinate, retaining the lower-order equations. The thin-film equations for ionic conductors are combined with similar equations for one thin dielectric film to derive the 2D equations of thin sandwich films composed of a dielectric layer and two ionic conductor layers. A sandwich film in the literature, as an ionic cable, is analyzed as an example of the equations obtained in this paper. The numerical results show the effect of diffusion in addition to the conduction treated in the literature. The obtained theoretical model including both conduction and diffusion phenomena can be used to investigate the performance of ionic-conductor devices with any frequency.     

Asymptotic model of slow three-dimensional liquid film flow in a space drop catcher

Slow steady-state film flows formed on the inner surface of a drop catcher funnel due to inertial deposition of drops of a dispersed working matter in the spacecraft cooling system are considered. A limiting asymptotic model of slow three-dimensional coolant film flow is constructed assuming that the deposited drops transfer all their mass, momentum, and energy to the film described by the equations of creeping viscous fluid flow in a thin layer of a priori unknown thickness. A first-order quasi-linear partial differential equation for the film thickness is derived. The shape of the film surface is investigated numerically as a function of parameters using the method of characteristics. The range of optimum parameters ensuring the steady-state film flow is found. The limits of existence of the solutions corresponding to the limiting model proposed are investigated.     

Experiments on the flow of a thin liquid film over a horizontal stationary and rotating disk surface

Experiments on characterization of thin liquid films flowing over stationary and rotating disk surfaces are described. The thin liquid film was created by introducing deionized water from a flow collar at the center of an aluminum disk with a known initial film thickness and uniform radial velocity. Radial film thickness distribution was measured using a non-intrusive laser light interface reflection technique that enabled the measurement of the instantaneous film thickness over a finite segment of the disk. Experiments were performed for a range of flow rates between 3.0 lpm and 15.0 lpm, corresponding to Reynolds numbers based on the liquid inlet gap height and velocity between 238 and 1,188. The angular speed of the disk was varied from 0 rpm to 300 rpm. When the disk was stationary, a circular hydraulic jump was present in the liquid film. The liquid-film thickness in the subcritical region (downstream of the hydraulic jump) was an order of magnitude greater than that in the supercritical region (upstream of the hydraulic jump) which was of the order of 0.3 mm. As the Reynolds number increased, the hydraulic jump migrated toward the edge of the disk. In the case of rotation, the liquid-film thickness exhibited a maximum on the disk surface. The liquid-film inertia and friction influenced the inner region where the film thickness progressively increased. The outer region where the film thickness decreased was primarily affected by the centrifugal forces. A flow visualization study of the thin film was also performed to determine the characteristics of the waves on the free surface. At high rotational speeds, spiral waves were observed on the liquid film. It was also determined that the angle of the waves which form on the liquid surface was a function of the ratio of local radial to tangential velocity.     

A variational approach to the fracture of brittle thin films subject to out-of-plane loading

We address the problem of fracture in homogenous linear elastic thin films using a variational model. We restrict our attention to quasi-static problems assuming that kinetic effects are minimal. We focus on out-of-plane displacement of the film and investigate the effect of bending on fracture. Our analysis is based on a two-dimensional model where the thickness of the film does not need to be resolved. We derive this model through a formal asymptotic analysis. We present numerical simulations in a highly idealized setting for the purpose of verification, as well as more realistic micro-indentation experiments.     

A theoretical analysis of the breakdown of electrostrictive oxide film on metal

Oxide films that form to protect (passivate) metal substrates from corrosive environments can be severely damaged when they are subjected to sufficient levels of electric potential. A continuum mechanics model is presented that captures the intimate electromechanical coupling of the environment and the film responsible for either growth or dissolution of the oxide. Analytical solutions, obtained for a finite-thick film experiencing a uniform electric field, illustrate the existence of a critical combination of electric field strength, initial film thickness and shape, beyond which the passivating oxide can become thin enough to undergo dielectric breakdown, or the substrate can become exposed to the corrosive environment. An experimental procedure is proposed to measure combinations of material properties required by the theoretical model to predict the lifetime of the oxide or to avoid the critical state. Illustrative numerical examples are provided to describe the morphological evolution of oxide films with a periodically wavy surface.     

Thin-film phase change driven by disjoining pressure difference

The thin liquid film at the contact line is gaining increasing attention due to its importance in phase-change heat transfer and wettability control. The intermolecular effects within the thin film are usually represented by of disjoining pressure. In the present work, molecular dynamics were employed to investigate the influence of disjoining pressure on thin–film evaporation and condensation in a nanoscale triple-phase system. The simulation domain was a cuboid with argon gas sandwiched between the two solid platinum walls. The two solid walls were fixed at the same temperature while the liquid films had different initial thicknesses thus corresponding to different disjoining pressures. Spontaneous evaporation and condensation were observed at the thicker and the thinner film, respectively. Disjoining pressure together with thermodynamics theories were employed to qualitatively and quantitatively explain the phenomenon. The evaporation fluxes were measured and compared to the Hertz-Knudsen-Schrage model which is based on the kinetic theory of gases. The resulting non-evaporating thickness was measured and compared to the models based on disjoining theory.     

Nonlinear dynamic response of a functionally graded plate with a through-width surface crack

A nonlinear vibration analysis of a simply supported functionally graded rectangular plate with a through-width surface crack is presented in this paper. The plate is subjected to a transverse excitation force. Material properties are graded in the thickness direction according to exponential distributions. The cracked plate is treated as an assembly of two sub-plates connected by a rotational spring at the cracked section whose stiffness is calculated through stress intensity factor. Based on Reddy’s third-order shear deformation plate theory, the nonlinear governing equations of motion for the FGM plate are derived by using the Hamilton’s principle. The deflection of each sub-plate is assumed to be a combination of the first two mode shape functions with unknown constants to be determined from boundary and compatibility conditions. The Galerkin’s method is then utilized to convert the governing equations to a two-degree-of-freedom nonlinear system including quadratic and cubic nonlinear terms under the external excitation, which is numerically solved to obtain the nonlinear responses of cracked FGM rectangular plates. The influences of material property gradient, crack depth, crack location and plate thickness ratio on the vibration frequencies and transient response of the surface-racked FGM plate are discussed in detail through a parametric study.