Initial wrinkling and its evolution of membrane inflated cone in bending

► We present a concept of wrinkling factor to determine the wrinkling condition. ► We propose an extremum method to determine the wrinkling characteristics. ► The extremum method is to search the maximum of the wrinkling factor. ► We predict the wrinkling evolution behavior of the inflated cone. ► We redefine the concept of the critical wrinkling load.