THE ROLE OF ADHESION IN THE IMPACT OF ELASTIC SPHERES

Many experiments have shown that when small particles impact a fixed s urface, the coefficient of restitution can be influenced by adhesion f orces. At low enough velocities the particles may be 'captured', so th at no rebound occurs, and several theories exist in the literature whi ch attempt to combine the effects of adhesion with inelastic deformati on of the solids. In this paper we make use of the Johnson-Kendall-Rob erts-Sperling (J-K-R-S) theory of adhesive elastic contact to examine interaction between adhesion and inelastic deformation in the impact o f predominantly elastic solids.