Multiscale Analysis on Two-dimensional Nanoscale Adhesive Contacts

Nanoscale adhesive contacts play a key role in micro/nano-electro-mechanical systems as the dimension of the components come to nanometer.Experimental studies on nanoscale adhesive contacts are limited by some uncertain factors and the cost of experiments is too high.Besides,nanoscale textured surfaces are difficult to process and nanoscale adhesive contacts of textured surfaces are still lack of investigation.By using multiscale method,which couples molecular dynamics simulation and finite element method,two-dimensional nanoscale adhesive contacts between a rigid cylindrical tip and an elastic substrate are investigated.For the contacts between the rigid cylindrical tip and smooth surface,Von Mises stress distributions,the maximum Von Mises stresses,and contact forces are compared for different radii to show the size effects and adhesive effects.The phenomena of hysteresis are observed and more obvious as the radii of the tip increase.The influences of indentation depth and indentation speed are also discussed.Then two series of textured surfaces are employed,and the influences of the texture asperity shape,asperity height,and asperity spacing on contact forces are studied.The contact forces comparisons show that textured surfaces can reduce contact forces effectively in the range of the two series.Contact forces of textured surfaces increase as the asperity heights increase,and textured surfaces with smaller asperity spacing will get higher contact forces.Contact forces may be controlled through textured surfaces in the future.The obtained results will help to improve contact condition and provide theory basis for texture design.