A note on the possibility of roughness enhancement of adhesion in Persson's theory

TL;DR

This paper examines the potential for roughness to enhance adhesion in Persson's theory, contrasting it with experimental observations and recent fracture mechanics explanations, highlighting unresolved issues.

Contribution

It critically analyzes the limitations of Persson's theory in explaining adhesion enhancement and compares it with recent fracture mechanics approaches.

Findings

Adhesion enhancement observed in experiments can be up to tenfold.

Area increase due to roughness is negligible according to recent studies.

Persson's theory does not fully account for the observed adhesion enhancement.

Abstract

In an attempt to model the observed enhancement of adhesion in some classical experiments in the 1970-1980's, Persson introduced in his theory of adhesion between rough solids a term which corresponds to an area increase due to roughness. In the old experiments, the adhesion enhancement was shown to be up to one order of magnitude, whereas the area increase could not be defined quantitatively because of possibly multiscale roughness. However, in more recent studies by Guduru and collaborators, this enhancement has been further explained with classical Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics theory, the area enhancement has been shown to be negligible, and therefore the problem of adhesion of rough surfaces remains qualitatively and quantitatively unsolved by Persson's theory.