Receding Adhesive Contact of a Beam on a Soft Layer

Receding contacts appear in many composite technical and biological systems at the points where tensile stresses would appear otherwise. Here, we consider the contact of a beam placed on an elastic foundation (or thin elastic layer) in the presence of adhesion. In contrast to non-adhesive receding contact, the contact area in adhesive receding contact does depend on the applied load. Decreasing the load from the state of initial contact opening leads to an increase in the contact area. At a certain critical load, the beam jumps into contact at once along its entire length. For long beams, the point of opening of the contact does not depend on the intensity of forces of adhesion, and the opening occurs in an unstable way. This can lead to acoustic effects like joint cracking.