title: Elastocapillary snapping: capillarity induces snap-through instabilities in small elastic beams.
abstract: We report on the capillarity-induced snapping of elastic beams. We show that a millimeter-sized water drop gently deposited on a thin buckled polymer strip may trigger an elastocapillary snap-through instability. We investigate experimentally and theoretically the statics and dynamics of this phenomenon and we further demonstrate that snapping can act against gravity, or be induced by soap bubbles on centimeter-sized thin metal strips. We argue that this phenomenon is suitable to miniaturization and design a condensation-induced spin-off version of the experiment involving a hydrophilic strip placed in a steam flow.
authors.affiliation: Département de Physique, École Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France and CNRS, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005 Paris, France and UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Aurélie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fargette
authors.affiliation: CNRS, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005 Paris, France and UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Neukirch
authors.affiliation: CNRS, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005 Paris, France and UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7190, Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, F-75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Arnaud
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Antkowiak