On the Effect of a Rate-Dependent Work of Adhesion in the Detachment of a Dimpled Surface

Abstract

Patterned surfaces have proven to be a valuable design to enhance adhesion, increasing hysteresis and the detachment stress at pull-off. To obtain high adhesive performance, soft materials are commonly, used, which easily conform to the countersurface, such as soft polymers and elastomers. Such materials are viscoelastic; i.e., they show rate-dependent properties. Here, the detachment of two half spaces is studied, one being flat and the other having a dimple in the limit of short range adhesion and a power law rate-dependent work of adhesion, as observed by several authors. Literature results have suggested that the dimpled surface would show pressure-sensitive adhesion, showing two possible adhered states, one weak, in partial contact, and one strong when full contact is achieved. By accounting for a power law rate-dependent work of adhesion, the “weak state” may be much stronger than it was in the purely elastic case, and hence the interface may be much more tough to separate. We study the pull-off detachment stress of the dimpled surface, showing that it weakly depends on the preload, but it is strongly affected by the dimensionless unloading rate. Finally, possible implications of the presented results in the detachment of soft materials from rough substrates are discussed.