Decohesion of a rigid punch from non-linear membrane undergoing finite axisymmetric deformation

Adhesion of flexible thin film or membrane plays an important role in many biological and industrial applications. In many physical systems, large deformation is often expected, especially for biological membranes, which suggests that non-linear analysis might be required. In this paper the adhesion and decohesion between a rigid flat punch and a non-linear membrane undergoing finite axisymmetric deformation is studied. The decohesion is assumed to obey the Griffith fracture criterion. The cases of initially stress-free and prestressed membrane are analyzed. A comparison with published works using the linear theory shows that the non-linear theory substantially deviates from the linear one, qualitatively and quantitatively. These results advocate the use of non-linear consideration when the membrane undergoes large deformation prior to and during the debonding process.