MECHANICS OF PARTICLE ADHESION

The adhesion of particles to surfaces is accompanied by deformations o f the materials arising from adhesion force-induced stresses. These de formations, which can be the result of an elastic, a nonlinear elastic , a viscoelastic, or a plastic response of the materials to the stress es, can significantly affect the forces needed to remove the particles from the substrate. The mechanics of adhesion-induced deformations be tween micrometer-size particles and various substrates are discussed i n this paper. Examples of elastic and plastic deformations resulting f rom the adhesion forces are presented. The experimental results are an alyzed in terms of various adhesion theories, which, under certain cir cumstances, permit the calculation of the thermodynamic work of adhesi on for contacting solids. The ranges of validity of these theories and their predictions are discussed. Finally, adhesion-induced deformatio ns which are not currently explicable in terms of these theories are p resented.