IPS-C — Anisotropic Expansion and Layer Separation in Water-Filled Elastic Cellular Matrices

Layer separation — propagating detachment of adjacent blob layers due to IPS overpressure — is the most serious structural failure mode in the Adaptive Matrix Ecosystem. This paper derives a theoretical basis suggesting that layer separation arrests passively and automatically. The no-air-no-vacuum axiom guarantees that any gap fills immediately with water at the local hydrostatic pressure, producing a pressure differential of exactly zero at the separation front (ΔP_f = 0, always). Arrest occurs in milliseconds without sensor detection or control action. An eight-state machine describes the complete damage-arrest-repair sequence: separation initiates (instantaneous), propagates at the Rayleigh wave velocity…