Fluid Stiction From a Contact Condition

Abstract

This paper considers modeling of fluid stiction between two separating plates that start from a mechanical contact condition. Published experimental work on initially contacting plates showed significant variations in stiction force peak values. In order to describe the observed strong force variations with mathematical models, the models should be quite sensitive to some of the input parameters of the stiction problem. The model in this paper assumes that small air bubbles are entrapped between the contact areas of the asperity peaks and that the fluid film flow between the cavitation bubbles is guided by Reynolds equation. The proposed model exhibits high sensitivity to initial bubble size and initial contact force compared to state-of-the art models. A delay of about 1 ms in the simulated stiction force evolution and the experiments was found. Potential causes for this discrepancy are discussed at the end of this paper and an outlook to future work, which can reduce the discrepancy between the model and experimental results is given.