This paper summarizes the submissions to a recently announced contact-mechanics modeling challenge. The task was to solve a typical, albeit mathematically fully defined problem on the adhesion between nominally flat surfaces. The surface topography of the rough, rigid substrate, the elastic properties of the indenter, as well as the short-range adhesion between indenter and substrate, were specified so that diverse quantities of interest, e.g., the distribution of interfacial stresses at a given load or the mean gap as a function of load, could be computed and compared to a reference solution. Many different solution strategies were pursued, ranging from traditional asperity-based models via Persson theory and brute-force computational approaches, to real-laboratory experiments and all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of a model, in which the original assignment was scaled down to the atomistic scale. While each submission contained satisfying answers for at least a subset of the posed questions, efficiency, versatility, and accuracy differed between methods, the more precise methods being, in general, computationally more complex. The aim of this paper is to provide both theorists and experimentalists with benchmarks to decide which method is the most appropriate for a particular application and to gauge the errors associated with each one
Adhesion between silica glass or acrylic balls and silicone elastomers and various industrial rubbers is investigated. The work of adhesion during pull-off is found to strongly vary depending on the system, which we attribute to the two opposite effects: (1) viscoelastic energy dissipation close to an opening crack tip and (2) surface roughness. Introducing surface roughness on the glass ball is found to increase the work of adhesion for soft elastomers, while for the stiffer elastomers it results in a strong reduction in the work of adhesion. For the soft silicone elastomers a strong increase in the work of adhesion with increasing pull-off velocity is observed, which may result from the non-adiabatic processes associated with molecular chain pull-out. In general, the work of adhesion is decreased after repeated contacts due to the transfer of molecules from the elastomers to the glass ball. Thus, extracting the free chains (oligomers) from the silicone elastomers is shown to make the work of adhesion independent of the number of contacts. The viscoelastic properties (linear and nonlinear) of all of the rubber compounds are measured, and the velocity dependent crack opening propagation energy at the interface is calculated. Silicone elastomers show a good agreement between the measured work of adhesion and the predicted results, but carbon black filled hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber compounds reveal that strain softening at the crack tip may play an important role in determining the work of adhesion. Additionally, adhesion measurement under submerged conditions in distilled water and water + soap solutions are also performed: a strong reduction in the work of adhesion is measured for the silicone elastomers submerged in water, and a complete elimination of adhesion is found for the water + soap solution attributed to an osmotic repulsion between the negatively charged surface of the glass and the elastomer.
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