A Mechanical Modeling of the Adhesive Contact With Effect of Tangential Forces

Abstract Interactions between adhesion and the applied loads may have important implications for microscale friction, wear, and joining performance of miniature devices. Since a recent molecular dynamics simulation has revealed the dependence between interfacial tractions in tangential adhesive contacts, in the present work, an analytical mechanical model for elastic adhesive contact between spheres under normal and tangential forces based on the findings from the simulation has been developed to apply to arbitrary adhesion effects. The tangential adhesive contact behaviors have been predicted by the proposed model. For given normal forces, the contraction of the stick zone exhibits instability during tangential loading. The degree of such tangential instability depends on the loading method, Tabor's parameter, and normal forces.