Peeling from a liquid

Abstract

We establish the existence of a cusp in the curvature of a solid sheet at its contact with a liquid subphase. We study two configurations in floating sheets where the solid–vapor–liquid contact line is a straight line and a circle, respectively. In the former case, a rectangular sheet is lifted at its one edge, whereas in the latter a gas bubble is injected beneath a floating sheet. We show that in both geometries the derivative of the sheet's curvature is discontinuous. We demonstrate that the boundary condition at the contact is identical in these two geometries, even though the shape of the contact line and the stress distribution in the sheet are very different.