ADHESIVE FORCE OF FLAT INDENTERS WITH BRUSH-STRUCTURE

We have numerically studied adhesive contact between a flat indenter with brush structure and an elastic half space using the boundary element method. Various surface structures with different size, number and shape of the “pillars”, as well as their distributions (regular or random) have been investigated. The results validate the theoretical prediction that the adhesive force in contact of an indenter with discontinuous areas is roughly proportional to the square root of the real contact density (“filling factor”)