Wrinkling of thin sheets on a rotating cylinder

Wrinkles are around us, not only on the skin of humans and animals but also in industrial applications, such as wearable devices and stretchable electronics. The mechanism of wrinkling instability has been extensively studied in several boundary conditions: swelling, elastic foundations, or curved substrate. Still, the wrinkling of stretched sheets on a rigid cylinder has not been less investigated so far. We perform systematic experiments for the stretched sheet on a rotating cylinder. The elastomeric sheet suspended and stretched by weight is attached to the cylinder which rotates at a constant speed. We find that the wrinkles appear and propagate along the cylinder, depending on the sheet aspect ratio and loading conditions. The apparent wrinkling is observed particularly when the weight is hung at the off-center of the bottom side of the sheet, i.e., when the sheet is stretched asymmetrically. Our findings will be applied to predict and control wrinkling, which appears as an obstacle in wearable devices.