DEFORMATION OF ELASTIC COATINGS IN ADHESIVE CONTACTS WITH SPHERICAL PROBES

摘要

A semi-analytical model for the adhesive contact of a rigid indenter on a coated elastic substrate has been presented and validated from experimental measurements of the shape of adhesive imprints. Besides the validation of the model, it could be envisaged to use these simple experiments to determine the adhesive and elastic properties of coated substrates. When the radius of the spherical indenter is large, non-axisymmetric imprints are observed. The corresponding instabilities were attributed to the release of the elastic energy stored in the highly confined region of the film under the contact.