Measurement of adhesion forces in air with the vibration method

Abstract

The vibration method represents a practical method for the measurement of adhesion forces and adhesion force distributions. This method causes sinusoidally alternating stresses and yields detachment and contact forces between particles and substrate of the same order of magnitude. Alternating contact forces of the vibration method can cause an adhesion force intensification through flattening of asperities. The measuring principle of the vibration method and the analysis of experimental results are described in the article. Normal adhesion forces (pull-off forces) are measured using the vibration method and the colloidal probe technique. The results of both methods show good agreement for small particle sizes. The influence of the detachment force direction is shown by comparing tangential and normal adhesion forces measured using particle reentrainment in a turbulent air flow and the vibration method, respectively. The surface roughness of the substrate and the relative humidity are shown to significantly influence the measured adhesion forces. For the calculation of the adhesion forces, an approach by Rabinovich was combined with approximations of plastic micro asperity flattening. The Rabinovich approach accounts for roughness effects on the van der Waals force by incorporating the rms roughness of the interacting surfaces. rms-values of the particles and substrates were measured with atomic force microscopy at different scanning areas.