Propagation of elastic waves in adhesive contacts: experiment and numerical model

The entry and propagation of pores inside an adhesive interface between an elastomer and a rigid sphere were studied experimentally and simulated numerically. It was shown that mutually interacting events involving attachment–detachment of different segments of the elastomer to the indenter resulted in non-trivial patterns of spatially distributed contacts between them, which were additionally influenced by air penetration of the pores.