Contact and Adhesion of Curved Rough Surfaces With Application to MEMS

Contact, adhesion and stick-slip are major detrimental factors in the performance of micro electromechanical systems (MEMS). One method to reduce adhesion may be the incorporation of tailored rough surfaces, as suggested by the classical experiments of Fuller and Tabor some 3 decades ago. However, before embarking on a costly experimental approach, it is important to quantitatively assess the possible reduction in adhesion through such tailored surfaces. Past analysis has generally been confined to the adhesion of flat surfaces with a random roughness profile, or to Hertzian contact (without adhesion) of a cylindrical surface with a sinusoidal surface profile. In this work, we extend the analysis to the adhesion of cylindrical surfaces with any arbitrary roughness profile. The application may, for example, be in the contact of MEMS gears. The load-displacement and contact area profiles provide both qualitative and quantitative insight on how rough curved surfaces interact under adhesion conditions.