Evaluation of mechanical parameters of an elastic thin film system by modeling and numerical simulation of telephone cord buckles

The morphology of telephone cord buckles of elastic thin films can be used to evaluate the initial residual stress and interface toughness of the film–substrate system. The maximum out-of-plane displacement δδ, the wavelength λλ and amplitude AA of the wave buckles can be measured in physical experiments. Through δδ, λλ, and AA, the buckle morphology is obtained by an annular sector model established using the von Karman plate equations in polar coordinates for the elastic thin film. The mode-mix fracture criterion is applied to determine the shape and scale parameters. A numerical algorithm combining the Newmark-ββ scheme and the Chebyshev collocation method is adopted to numerically solve the problem in a quasi-dynamic process. Numerical experiments show that the numerical results agree well with physical experiments.