Deformation field of the soft substrate induced by capillary force

Prediction on the deformation of a soft substrate induced by capillary force has been widely paid attention in the broad range of applications, such as metallurgy, material science, astronavigation, micro/nano-technology, etc., which is also a supplementary result to the classical Young's equation. We quantitatively analyzed the deformation of an elastic substrate under capillary force by means of the energy principle and the continuum mechanics method. The actual drop's morphology was investigated and was compared with that calculated based on the classical spherical shape assumption of the droplet. The displacement field of the substrate was obtained, especially, its singularity at the droplet edge was also discussed. The results are beneficial to engineering application and micro/nanomeasurement. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.