Adhesive contact of a rigid circular cylinder to a soft elastic substrate - the role of surface tension

This article studies the effects of surface tension on the adhesive contact mechanics of a long rigid cylinder on an infinite half space comprising an incompressible elastic material. We present an exact solution based on small strain theory. The relationship between the indentation force and contact width was found to depend on a single dimensionless parameter omega = sigma/4(mu R)(2/3)(W-ad/2 pi)(1/3') where R is the cylinder radius, W-ad is the interfacial work of adhesion, and sigma and mu are the surface tension and shear modulus of the half space, respectively. For small omega the solution reduces to the classical Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory, whereas for large omega the solution reduces to the small slope version of the Young-Dupre equation. The pull-off phenomenon was carefully examined and it was found that the contact width at pull-off reduces to zero when surface tension is larger than a critical value.