Debonding waves in gel thin films.

We develop a mathematical model for the sliding of a gel sheet adhered to a moving substrate. The sliding takes place by the motion of detached region between the gel sheet and the substrates, i.e. the propagation of a Schallamach wave. Efficient numerical methods are developed to solve the problem. Numerical examples illustrate that the model can describe the Schallamach wave and are consistent with the existing experiments qualitatively.