Buckling of an elastic fiber with finite length in a soft matrix

Elastic fibers embedded in a soft matrix are frequently encountered in nature and engineering across different length scales, ranging from microtubules in cytosol and filament networks to dissociative slender fish bones in muscles and fiber-reinforced soft composites. Fibers may buckle when the composite is subjected to compression; this study investigates this issue through a combination of experiments, finite-element simulations and theoretical analysis. Analysis reveals the important role of the interfacial shear forces and leads to an explicit solution to predict the occurrence of buckling for a slender fiber with finite length. The results reported in this paper will help understand the formation of shapes in some natural systems and provide guidelines for the design of soft biocomposites.