The delamination of a growing elastic sheet with adhesion

We study the onset of delamination blisters in a growing elastic sheet adhered to a flat stiff substrate. When the ends of the sheet are kept fixed, its growth causes residual stresses that lead to delamination. This instability can be viewed as a discontinuous buckling between the complete adhered solution and the buckled solution. We provide an analytic expression for the critical deformation at which the instability occurs. We show that the critical threshold scales with a single dimensionless parameter that comprises information from the geometry of the sheet, the mechanical parameters of material and the adhesive features of the substrate.