Related papers: Sticking without contact: Elastohydrodynamic adhes…
Adhesive contact between a thin elastic sheet and a substrate in a liquid environment arises in a range of biological, physical and technological applications. By considering the dynamics of this process that naturally couples fluid flow,…
In the classic theory of solid adhesion, surface energy drives deformation to increase contact area while bulk elasticity opposes it. Recently, solid surface stress has been shown also to play an important role in opposing deformation of…
We present a novel theory of the adhesive contact of linear viscoelastic materials against rigid substrates moving at constant velocity. Despite the non-conservative behavior of the system, the closure equation of the contact problem can be…
The adhesive contact between elastic solids with randomly rough, self affine fractal surfaces is studied by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The interfacial binding energy obtained from the simulations of nominally flat and curved…
We present our recent study on rough adhesive contacts of viscoelastic materials in steady-state sliding, focusing on the interplay between adhesion and viscoelasticity by means of a novel energy approach. We investigate tribological…
Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between non-conformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich array of new physics arising from…
We discuss how surface roughness influence the adhesion between elastic solids. We introduce a Tabor number which depends on the length scale or magnification, and which gives information about the nature of the adhesion at different length…
The adhesion paradox refers to the observation that for most solid objects no adhesion can be detected when they are separated from a state of molecular contact. The adhesion paradox results from surface roughness, and we present…
The elastic and adhesive properties of a solid surface can be quantified by indenting it with a rigid sphere. Indentation tests are classically described by the JKR-law when the solid is very stiff, while recent work highlights the…
The surface tension of compliant materials such as gels provides resistance to deformation in addition to and sometimes surpassing that due to elasticity. This article studies how surface tension changes the contact mechanics of a small…
We present a general energy approach to study the unsteady adhesive contact of viscoelastic materials. Under the assumption of infinitely short-range adhesive interactions, we exploit the principle of virtual work to generalize Griffith…
We consider an adhesive contact between a thin soft layer on a rigid substrate and a rigid cylindrical indenter ("line contact") with account of the surface tension of the layer. First, it is shown that the boundary condition for the…
Thermodynamics tells us to expect underwater contact between two hydrophobic surfaces to result in stronger adhesion compared to two hydrophilic surfaces. However, presence of water changes not only energetics, but also the dynamic process…
Inspired by recent experiments demonstrating that vibrating elastic sheets can function as seemingly contactless suction cups, we investigate the elastohydrodynamic hovering of a thin elastic sheet vibrating near a rigid substrate. Previous…
A self-consistent model is developed to investigate attachment / detachment kinetics of two soft, deformable microspheres with irregular surface and coated with flexible binding ligands. The model highlights how the microscale binding…
Surface stresses have recently emerged as a key player in the mechanics of highly compliant solids. The classic theories of contact mechanics describe adhesion with a compliant substrate as a competition between surface energies driving…
Intermolecular forces are known to precipitate adhesion events between solid bodies. Inspired by a macro-scale experiment showing the hysteretic adhesion of a piece of flexible tape over a plastic substrate, we develop here a model of…
In this study, we propose a theory of rough adhesive contact of viscoelastic materials in steady-state sliding. By exploiting a boundary formulation based on Green function approach, the unknown contact domain is calculated by enforcing the…
Kinetic frictional forces resisting droplet motion often appear to be separate to surface wettability and adhesive forces. Here we show that such friction arises from a simple combination of the contact angle hysteresis and adhesive force.…
I study how the contact area and the work of adhesion, between two elastic solids with randomly rough surfaces, depend on the relative humidity. The surfaces are assumed to be hydrophilic, and capillary bridges form at the interface between…