Adhesive contact modelling based on Lennard-Jones force law

At diminishing separations,the load carrying capacity of opposing rough surfaces is distributed among asperities across a smaller contact area as compared with the apparent contact area. an improved understanding on asperity interactions is therefore required in order to better predict the tribological behaviour of a rough surface contact. in this paper,based on weir’s method for computing the work of adhesion,a simplistic adhesive contact model is proposed,applying the lennard-jones force law,to study an asperity pair interaction. assuming that the tip represents an asperity,the numerical model is subsequently applied to simulate a tungsten carbide (wc) coated afm tip indenting on a diamond (111) surface. it was found that the simulated pull-off force agrees with the measured value by enachescu et al for a wc afm tip on a diamond (111). © 2015 penerbit utm press. all rights reserved.