# How a Blister Heals

Source: [How a Blister Heals](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa2d031e209131ce855b84>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-24T15:43:21.812Z

Authors: Jonathan E. Longley, L. Mahadevan, Manoj K. Chaudhury

Published: 2014-02-02T23:33:13.000Z

## Abstract

We use experiments to study the dynamics of the healing of a blister, a localized bump in a thin elastic layer that is adhered to a soft substrate everywhere except at the bump. We create a blister by gently placing a glass cover slip on a PDMS substrate. The pressure jump across the elastic layer drives fluid flow through micro-channels that form at the interface between the layer and the substrate; these channels coalesce at discrete locations as the blister heals and eventually disappear at a lower critical radius. The spacing of the channel follows a simple scaling law that can be theoretically justified, and the kinetics of healing is rate limited by fluid flow, but with a non-trivial dependence on the substrate thickness that likely arises due to channelization. Our study is relevant to a variety of soft adhesion scenarios.

## Recorded benchmark results

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## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.0262>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.0262.pdf>)