Morphogenesis through elastic phase separation in a pneumatic surface

TL;DR

This paper uncovers a novel elastic phase separation phenomenon in inflatable elastomer surfaces, leading to complex buckling patterns driven by incompatible reference metrics, expanding understanding of morphogenetic shape formation.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of elastic phase separation causing complex buckling patterns in inflatable elastomer surfaces, linking morphogenesis to non-Euclidean metrics.

Findings

Inflatable elastomer plates buckle into complex shapes under pressure.

Elastic phase separation causes incompatible reference metrics.

Pattern formation is driven by non-Euclidean geometry.

Abstract

We report a phenomenon of phase separation that relates in many aspects to Yves Couder's work: an inflatable architectured elastomer plate, expected to expand homogeneously in its plane, buckles instead widely out-of-plane into very complex shape when internal pressure is applied. We show that this morphogenetic pattern formation is due to a two-dimensional elastic phase separation, which induces incompatible patchy non-Euclidean reference metric.