A Molecular Dynamics Study on the Adhesive Contact with Effect of Tangential Forces

Adhesive contact with the effect of tangential force may have important implications in friction and wear performances of small-sized devices and joining technologies. In the present work, adhesive contact involving tangential loading but before gross slip between spherical objects has been simulated through molecular dynamics (MD) to reveal the interaction between adhesion and the applied forces. When only the normal force is present, the results on force–displacement relationship and interfacial traction have been presented to compare with the predictions of Johnson–Kendall–Roberts (JKR), Maugis–Dugdale (M–D) and the Double–Hertz (D–H) models with the purpose of evaluating their applicability. In the presence of additional tangential forces, their interaction with adhesion has been studied in depth through loading and unloading. Distribution of the shear traction at the interface which is different from that in the existent models has been obtained. Those altogether may help to develop reasonable continuum models for adhesive contact under inclined forces.