Etude théorique et expérimentale de la condensation capillaire en vue de son application au micro-assemblage

Nowadays, the assembly of small (<1mm) components has become an industrial reality. Many domains like MEMS, surgery, telecommunications, car industry, etc. now have large use of micro-parts. At this scale, predominant forces are different than in macroworld. The pieces often undergo adhesion problems. The adhesion forces can be splitted in different components :van der Waals, electrostatics and capillary condensation. This work focuses on capillary condensation as it often can be the major component of the adhesion force. <p><p>The first part of this work details a review of literature of different fields involved in capillary condensation. A simulation tool is then implemented and theoretically validated in the second part of the work. Finally, a test bed is presented; this bed is then used to experimentally validate the simulation results.<p><p>Experiments and simulation results are shown to concord. Therefore, the simulation tool can be used to model the force due to capillary condensation.Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur