  The wrinkling of thin elastic objects provides a means of generating regular
patterning at small scales in applications ranging from photovoltaics to
microfluidic devices. Static wrinkle patterns are known to be governed by an
energetic balance between the object's bending stiffness and an effective
substrate stiffness, which may originate from a true substrate stiffness or
from tension and curvature along the wrinkles. Here we investigate dynamic
wrinkling, induced by the impact of a solid sphere onto an ultra-thin polymer
sheet floating on water. The vertical deflection of the sheet's centre induced
by impact draws material radially inwards, resulting in an azimuthal
compression that is relieved by the wrinkling of the entire sheet. We show that
this wrinkling is truly dynamic, exhibiting features that are qualitatively
different to those seen in quasi-static wrinkling experiments. Moreover, we
show that the wrinkles coarsen dynamically because of the inhibiting effect of
the fluid inertia. This dynamic coarsening can be understood heuristically as
the result of a dynamic stiffness, which dominates the static stiffnesses
reported thus far, and allows new controls of wrinkle wavelength.
