Capillary Adhesion of Micro-beams and Plates: A Review

  • Jianlin Liu
  • Re Xia
Chapter

Abstract

A review is presented for the capillary adhesion of micro-beams and plates, and this phenomenon exists widely in MEMS, animal hairs, carbon nanotubes or nanowires. Although the capillary force is usually negligible at the macroscopic scale of human buildings, bridges or vehicles, it becomes dominant at small scales since the surface/volume ratio increases as smaller objects are considered. In this review, we show the fundamental theory and analysis method for general problems of capillary adhesion. Firstly, for the adhesion of micro-beam or micro-plate, the existing investigation deals with the cases of both infinitesimal and finite deformation. In use of the principle of minimum total potential energy, the critical adhered length and deflection of the micro-structure can be derived. Furthermore, the mechanism of the hierarchical structure in adhesion can be elucidated by means of energy theory. The method adopted in this chapter can also be developed to solve other adhesion problems associated with van der Waals force or electrostatic force. These findings may provide inspirations for the design of micro-devices, MEMS, micro-sensor and non-wetting materials from different aspects (e.g., geometric shape, characteristic size, surface microstructure and elasticity).

Keywords

capillary adhesion infinitesimal deformation finite deformation hierarchical structure critical parameters 
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Copyright information

© Higher Education Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • Jianlin Liu
    • 1
  • Re Xia
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Engineering MechanicsChina University of PetroleumQingdaoChina
  2. 2.Schoool of Power and Mechanical EngineeringWuhan UniversityWuhanChina

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