Combined Adhesion and Friction Effects on Cylinder-on-Flat Elastic–Plastic Microcontact

Considerable research efforts have been expended in the studies of various types of microcontact devices. One such case is the microelectromechanical switches (MEMS) involving metal-to-metal microcontacts. These microcontacts involve many geometries including cylinder-on-flat interfaces. Further, these microcontacts operate under the combined effects of adhesion and friction and also under the cyclic loading condition, so the understanding of microcontact stress state as well as the induced adhesion force during a load cycle is needed. This study investigates the microcontact interaction between deformable smooth cylindrical segment and deformable smooth flat surface with and without adhesion force and also with and without friction using a finite element methodology. Surface integration method based on the Lennard–Jones potential is used to compute the adhesion force, which involves traction–repulsion interactions outside the contact area of contacting bodies. Effects of several parameters (power exponen...