Expansion of a hole in a viscoelastic liquid sheet
Experiments on highly viscous polymeric films show that punctured holes expand exponentially in time, without sustained accumulation of liquid near the rim. This response departs from the Taylor--Culick description, in which displaced liquid accumulates in a growing rim that moves at constant speed. Although these differences were initially attributed to viscoelasticity, they were later rationalized using a purely viscous theory, leaving the role of viscoelastic stresses unresolved. We analyze the expansion of an axisymmetric hole in a freely suspended viscoelastic liquid sheet described by the Oldroyd-B model. Exploiting the separation of length scales between hole radius and film thickness, we derive extensional thin-film equations on the scale of the hole and an effective boundary condition from an asymptotic force balance in the tip region. Analytical solutions are obtained for weak viscoelasticity, $Wi\ll 1$, and the ultra-dilute limit, $μ_p\llμ_s$, where $Wi$ is the Weissenberg number, while $μ_s$ and $μ_p$ are solvent and polymeric viscosities, respectively. For weak viscoelasticity, the dimensionless hole radius grows approximately as $e^{(0.5+αWi β_p)T}$, where $α=(12 - 6\log 2-π)/21\approx 0.224$ and $β_p=μ_p/(μ_s+μ_p)$. In the ultra-dilute limit, the radius grows approximately as $e^{(0.5+α^{*}β_p )T}$, where $α^{*}(Wi)>0$ is evaluated numerically. In both regimes, viscoelastic stresses increase the exponential growth rate relative to the Newtonian limit and induce film-thickness variations, with thickening near the retracting edge. This acceleration arises from azimuthal stretching and radial compression of the polymers, which redistribute stresses in the film and modify the stress balance at the tip, leading to a stronger outward radial extensional flow.