Issue 19, 2019

Adhesive elastocapillary force on a cantilever beam

Abstract

This paper reports an experimental and theoretical investigation of a cantilever beam in contact with an underlying substrate, in the presence of an intervening liquid bridge. The beam is deflected in response to the adhesive capillary forces generated by the liquid. Three main regimes of contact are observed, similarly to other elastocapillary systems already reported in the literature. We measured both the position of the liquid meniscus and the force at the beam clamp in the direction normal to the substrate, as functions of the distance between the beam clamp and the substrate. The resulting force–displacement curve is not monotonic and it exhibits hysteresis in the second regime that we could attribute to solid–solid friction at the beam tip. In the third regime, the adhesive force measured at the clamp strongly increases as the beam approaches the substrate. A 2-dimensional beam model is proposed to rationalize these measurements. This model involves several non-linearities due to geometrical constraints, and its solution with a minimum of iterations is not trivial. The model correctly reproduces the force–displacement curve under two conditions: friction is considered in the second regime, and the reaction force applied by the substrate on the beam is distributed in the third regime. These results are discussed in the context of the adhesion of setal tips involved in the terrestrial locomotion of beetles.

Graphical abstract: Adhesive elastocapillary force on a cantilever beam

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
31 Jan 2019
Accepted
13 Apr 2019
First published
16 Apr 2019

Soft Matter, 2019,15, 3999-4007

Adhesive elastocapillary force on a cantilever beam

T. Gilet, S. Gernay, L. Aquilante, M. Mastrangeli and P. Lambert, Soft Matter, 2019, 15, 3999 DOI: 10.1039/C9SM00217K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements