I discuss fluid flow at the interface between solids with anisotropic roughness. I show that for randomly rough surfaces with anisotropic roughness, the contact area percolate at the same relative contact area as for isotropic roughness, and that the Bruggeman effective medium theory and the critical junction theory give nearly the same results for the fluid flow conductivity. This shows that, in most cases, the surface roughness observed at high magnification is irrelevant for fluid flow problems such as the leakage of static seals, and fluid squeeze-out.
Adhesion between two bodies is a key parameter in wear processes. At the macroscale, strong adhesive bonds are known to lead to high wear rates, as observed in clean metal-on-metal contact. Reducing the strength of the interfacial adhesion is then desirable, and techniques such as lubrication and surface passivation are employed to this end. Still, little is known about the influence of adhesion on the microscopic processes of wear. In particular, the effects of interfacial adhesion on the wear particle size and on the surface roughness evolution are not clear, and are therefore addressed here…
Interfacial hydrodynamic slippage of water depends on both on surface chemistry and roughness. This study tries to connect the effect of chemical property and the physical structure of the surface on the interfacial slippage of water. By performing molecular dynamics simulations (MDS) of Couette flow of water molecules over a reduced Lennard-Jones (LJ) surface, the velocity profile is obtained and extrapolated to get the slip lengths. The slip lengths are measured for various surface-fluid interactions. These interactions are varied by changing the wettability of the surface (characterized by …
We investigate the effects of image charges, interfacial charge discreteness, and surface roughness on spherical electric double layers in electrolyte solutions with divalent counter-ions in the setting of the primitive model. By using Monte Carlo simulations and the image charge method, the zeta potential profile and the integrated charge distribution function are computed for varying surface charge strengths and salt concentrations. Systematic comparisons were carried out between three distinct models for interfacial charges: 1) SURF1 with uniform surface charges, 2) SURF2 with discrete poin…
The effective solid liquid interfacial tension (SL IFT) between pure liquids and rough solid surfaces is studied through coarse grained simulations. Using the dissipative particle dynamics method, we design solid liquid interfaces, confining a pure liquid between two explicit solid surfaces with different roughness degrees. The roughness of the solid phase was characterized by Wenzel roughness factor and the effective SL IFT (γ_sl^') is reported as a function of it also. Two solid liquid systems differentiated from each other by their solid liquid repulsion strength are studied to measure the …
We discuss how the wettability and roughness of a solid impacts its hydrodynamic properties. We see in particular that hydrophobic slippage can be dramatically affected by the presence of roughness. Owing to the development of refined methods for setting very well-controlled micro- or nanotextures on a solid, these effects are being exploited to induce novel hydrodynamic properties, such as giant interfacial slip, superfluidity, mixing, and low hydrodynamic drag, that could not be achieved without roughness.
Machine elements and mechanical components have often surfaces with anisotropic roughness, which may result from the machining processes, e.g. grinding, or from wear. Hence, it is important to understand how surface roughness anisotropy affects contact mechanics properties, such as friction and the interface separation, which is important for lubricated contacts. Here we extend and apply a multiscale mean-field model to the lubricated contact between a soft (e.g. rubber) elastic solid and a rigid countersurface. We consider surfaces with anisotropic surface roughness, and discuss how the fluid…
Roughness and orientational order in thin films of anisotropic particles are investigated using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations on a cubic lattice. Anisotropic next-neighbor interactions between the lattice particles were chosen to mimic the effects of shape anisotropy in the interactions of disc- or rod-like molecules with van-der-Waals attractions. Increasing anisotropy leads first to a preferred orientation in the film (which is close to the corresponding equilibrium transition) while the qualitative mode of roughness evolution (known from isotropic systems) does not change. At strong aniso…
To unravel how the microstructure affects the fracture surface roughness in heterogeneous brittle solids like rocks or ceramics, we characterized the roughness statistics of post-mortem fracture surfaces in home-made materials of adjustable microstructure length-scale and porosity, obtained by sintering monodisperse polystyrene beads. Beyond the characteristic size of disorder, the roughness profiles are found to exhibit self-affine scaling features evolving with porosity. Starting from a null value and increasing the porosity, we quantitatively modify the self-affine scaling properties from a…
The total elastic stiffness of two contacting bodies with a microscopically rough interface has an interfacial contribution K that is entirely attributable to surface roughness. A quantitative understanding of K is important because it can dominate the total mechanical response and because it is proportional to the interfacial contributions to electrical and thermal conductivity in continuum theory. Numerical simulations of the dependence of K on the applied squeezing pressure p are presented for nominally flat elastic solids with a range of surface roughnesses. Over a wide range of p, K rises…
Microgels, cross-linked polymers with submicrometer size, are ideal soft model systems. While spherical microgels have been studied extensively, anisotropic microgels have been hardly investigated. In this study, we compare the interfacial deformation and assembly of anisotropic core-shell and hollow microgels. The core-shell microgel consists of an elliptical core of hematite covered with a thin silica layer and a thin shell made of PNiPAM. The hollow microgels were obtained after a two step etching procedure of the inorganic core. The behavior of these microgels at the oil-water interface wa…
The separation of solids in adhesive contact, or the fracture of solid bodies, often results in the emission of high energy photons, e.g., visible light and X-rays. This is believed to be related to charge separation. We propose that the emission of high energy photons involves surface roughness and surface diffusion of ions or electrons, resulting in the concentration of charge at the tips of high asperities, and to electric field enhancement, which facilitate the discharging process which result in the high energy photons. If the surface diffusion is too fast, or the separation of the solid …
We study the average separation between an elastic solid and a hard solid with a nominal flat but randomly rough surface, as a function of the squeezing pressure. We present experimental results for a silicon rubber (PDMS) block with a flat surface squeezed against an asphalt road surface. The theory shows that an effective repulse pressure act between the surfaces of the form p proportional to exp(-u/u0), where u is the average separation between the surfaces and u0 a constant of order the root-mean-square roughness, in good agreement with the experimental results.
We study the leakage of fluids (liquids or gases) in syringes with glass barrel, steel plunger and rubber O-ring stopper. The leakrate depends on the interfacial surface roughness and on the viscoelastic properties of the rubber. Random surface roughness is produced by sandblasting the rubber O-rings. We present a very simple theory for gas flow which takes into account both the diffusive and ballistic flow. The theory shows that the interfacial fluid flow (leakage) channels are so narrow that the gas flow is mainly ballistic (the so called Knudsen limit). We compare the leakrate obtained usin…
For isotropic fluids, classical nucleation theory predicts the nucleation rate, barrier height and critical droplet size by accounting for the competition between bulk energy and interfacial tension. The nucleation process in liquid crystals is less understood. We numerically investigate nucleation in monolayered nematogenic films using a mesoscopic framework, in particular, we study the mor- phology and kinetic pathway in spontaneous formation and growth of droplets of the stable phase in the metastable background. The parameter $κ$ that quantifies the anisotropic elastic energy plays a centr…
Simulations with more than $10^{12}$ spins are used to study the motion of a domain wall driven through a three-dimensional random-field Ising magnet (RFIM) by an external field $H$. The interface advances in a series of avalanches whose size diverges at a critical external field $H_c$. Finite-size scaling is applied to determine critical exponents and test scaling relations. Growth is intrinsically anisotropic with the height of an avalanche normal to the interface $\ell_\perp$ scaling as the width along the interface $\ell_\|$ to a power $χ=0.85 \pm 0.01$. The total interface roughness is co…
We study the leakage of air in syringes with Teflon coated rubber stopper and glass barrel. The leakrate depends on the interfacial surface roughness, the viscoelastic properties of the rubber and on the elastoplastic properties of the Teflon coating. The measured leakage rates are compared to the predictions of a simple theory for gas flow, which takes into account both the diffusive and ballistic air flow, and the elastoplastic multiscale contact mechanics which determines the probability distribution of interfacial separations. The theory shows that the interfacial air flow (leakage) channe…
Metrological AFM measurements are performed on the silica glass interfaces of photonic band-gap fibres and hollow capillaries. The freezing of attenuated out-of-equilibrium capillary waves during the drawing process is shown to result in a reduced surface roughness. The roughness attenuation with respect to the expected thermodynamical limit is determined to vary with the drawing stress following a power law. A striking anisotropic character of the height correlation is observed: glass surfaces thus retain a structural record of the direction of the flow to which the liquid was submitted.
The surface-impedance matrix method is used to study interfacial waves polarized in a plane of symmetry of anisotropic elastic materials. Although the corresponding Stroh polynomial is a quartic, it turns out to be analytically solvable in quite a simple manner. A specific application of the result concerns the calculation of the speed of a Stoneley wave, polarized in the common symmetry plane of two rigidly bonded anisotropic solids. The corresponding algorithm is robust, easy to implement, and gives directly the speed (when the wave exists) for any orientation of the interface plane, normal …
We generalize the Persson contact mechanics and rubber friction theory to the case where both surfaces have surface roughness. The solids can be rigid, elastic or viscoelastic, and can be homogeneous or layered. We calculate the contact area, the viscoelastic contribution to the friction force, and the average interfacial separation as a function of the sliding speed and the nominal contact pressure. We illustrate the theory with numerical results for a rubber block sliding on a road surface. We find that with increasing sliding speed, the influence of the roughness on the rubber block decreas…
The description of elastic, nonadhesive contacts between solids with self-affine surface roughness seems to necessitate knowledge of a large number of parameters. However, few parameters suffice to determine many important interfacial properties as we show by combining dimensional analysis with numerical simulations. This insight is used to deduce the pressure dependence of the relative contact area and the mean interfacial separation $Δ\bar{u}$ and to present the results in a compact form. Given a proper unit choice for pressure $p$, i.e., effective modulus $E^*$ times the root-mean-square gr…
Dynamic wetting plays an important role in the physics of multiphase flow, and has significant influence on many industrial and geotechnical applications. In this work, a modified smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) model is employed to simulate surface tension, contact angle, and dynamic wetting effects. The wetting and dewetting phenomena are simulated in a capillary tube, where the liquid particles are raised or withdrawn by a shifting substrate. The SPH model is modified by introducing a newly-developed viscous force formulation at liquid-solid interface to reproduce the rate-dependent b…
In this work, we numerically study the elastic contact between isotropic and anisotropic, rigid, randomly rough surfaces and linearly elastic counterfaces as well as the subsequent Reynolds flow through the gap between the two contacting solids. We find the percolation threshold to depend on the fluid-flow direction when the Peklenik number indicates anisotropy unless the system size clearly exceeds the roll-off wave length parallel to the easy flow direction. A critical contact area near 0.415 is confirmed. Heuristically corrected effective-medium treatments satisfactorily provide Reynolds fl…
I study fluid flow at the interface between elastic solids with randomly rough surfaces. I use the contact mechanics model of Persson to take into account the elastic interaction between the solid walls and the Bruggeman effective medium theory to account for the influence of the disorder on the fluid flow. I calculate the flow tensor which determines the pressure flow factor and, e.g., the leak-rate of static seals. I show how the perturbation treatment of Tripp can be extended to arbitrary order in the ratio between the root-mean-square roughness amplitude and the average interfacial surface…
I study how the contact area and the work of adhesion, between two elastic solids with randomly rough surfaces, depend on the relative humidity. The surfaces are assumed to be hydrophilic, and capillary bridges form at the interface between the solids. For elastically hard solids with relative smooth surfaces, the area of real contact and therefore also the sliding friction, are maximal when there is just enough liquid to fill out the interfacial space between the solids, which typically occurs for $d_{\rm K} \approx 3 h_{\rm rms}$, where $d_{\rm K}$ is the height of the capillary bridge and $…
We present a contact mechanics problem, which we consider to be representative for contacts between nominally flat surfaces. The main ingredients of the mathematically fully defined contact problem are: Self-affine roughness, linear elasticity, the small-slope approximation, and short-range adhesion between the frictionless surfaces. Surface energies, elastic contact modulus and computer-generated surface topographies are provided at www.lms.uni-saarland.de/contact-mechanics-challenge. To minimize the undesirable but frequent problem of unit conversion errors, we provide some benchmark results…
With the recent important development of microfluidic systems, miniaturization of flow devices has become a real challenge. Microchannels, however, are characterized by a large surface to volume ratio, so that surface properties strongly affect flow resistance in submicrometric devices. We present here results showing that the concerted effect of wetting . properties and surface roughness may considerably reduce friction of the fluid past the boundaries. The slippage of the fluid at the channel boundaries is shown to be drastically increased by using surfaces that are patterned at the nanomete…
