General Relations of Indentations on Solids With Surface Tension

Abstract

The conventional contact mechanics does not account for surface tension; however, it is important for micro- or nanosized contacts. In the present paper, the influences of surface tension on the indentations of an elastic half-space by a rigid sphere, cone, and flat-ended cylinder are investigated, and the corresponding singular integral equations are formulated. Due to the complicated structure of the integral kernel, it is difficult to obtain their analytical solutions. By using the Gauss–Chebyshev quadrature formula, the integral equations are solved numerically first. Then, for each indenter, the analytical solutions of two limit cases considering only the bulk elasticity or surface tension are presented. It is interesting to find that, through a simple combination of the solutions of two limit cases and fitting the direct numerical results, the dependence of load on contact radius or indent depth for general case can be given explicitly. The results incorporate the contribution of surface tension in contact mechanics and are helpful to understand contact phenomena at micro- and nanoscale.