Effect of the Polydispersity of a Colloidal Drop on Drying Induced Stress as Measured by the Buckling of a Floating Sheet. Author François Boulogne, Yong Kong, Janine Nunes, Howard Stone Publication Year 2016 Type Journal Article Abstract We study the stress developed during the drying of a colloidal drop of silica nanoparticles. In particular, we use the wrinkling instability of a thin floating sheet to measure the net stress applied by the deposit on the substrate and we focus on the effect of the particle polydispersity. In the case of a bidisperse suspension, we show that a small number of large particles substantially decreases the expected stress, which we interpret as the formation of lower hydrodynamic resistance paths in the porous material. As colloidal suspensions are usually polydisperse, we show for different average particle sizes that the stress is effectively dominated by the larger particles of the distribution and not by the average particle size. Journal Phys Rev Lett Volume 116 Issue 23 Pages 238001 Date Published 2016 Jun 10 ISSN Number 1079-7114 DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.238001 Alternate Journal Phys Rev Lett PMID 27341259 PubMedGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML