Adhesive contact of elastomers: effective adhesion energy and creep function

TL;DR

This paper develops analytical expressions to quantify how viscoelastic response influences the effective adhesion energy in elastomer contacts, considering contact edge velocity and stress coupling, aiding experimental analysis.

Contribution

It introduces simple analytical functionals based on creep response to evaluate viscoelastic effects on adhesion energy in elastomers.

Findings

Viscoelastic response significantly affects effective adhesion energy.

Coupling between local stress and remote loading influences contact behavior.

Separation process is similarly affected by viscoelasticity in both contact growth and recession.

Abstract

For the adhesive contact of elastomers, we propose expressions to quantify the impact of viscoelastic response on effective adhesion energy as a function of contact edge velocity. The expressions we propose are simple analytical functionals of the creep response and should be suitable for experimental data analysis in terms of measured rheologies. We also emphasize the role of the coupling between local stress field at the contact edge and the macroscopic remote loading (far field). We show that the contrast between growing and receding contact originates from the impact of viscoelastic response on coupling, while the separation process at the contact edge is similarly affected by viscoelasticity in both cases.