title: Adhesion in elastic-plastic spherical microcontact.
abstract: An elastic-plastic adhesion model for a metallic deformable sphere pressed by a rigid flat is presented. Analytical dimensionless expressions for the local separation outside the contact area and for the adhesion force are provided covering a large range of interference values from a point contact to a fully plastic contact. Two main dimensionless parameters of the problem are identified and their effect on the adhesion is investigated. The significance of the adhesion in the elastic-plastic contact force balance is discussed and the regimes where adhesion is important or negligible are pointed out. A comparison of the present results with a previously published approximate elastic-plastic model shows substantial differences in the local separation and in the adhesion force.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: Lior
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kogut
authors.forename: Izhak
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Etsion