Studies in adhesion.—I

Abstract

Friction measures the tangential reaction at an interface to external forces, and certain relations to time, temperature, pressure and chemical constitution have been described in earlier papers. It seemed worth while to examine the relations of the normal reaction, but nothing has been attempted beyond a preliminary survey of what has proved to be an interesting field. For the purposed of this paper the word adhesion means simply the normal force needed to detach completely a cylinder from a plate. Measurements of this force are described in an interesting paper by Budgett, which will be referred to later.