Adaptive Multiscale Method for Two-dimensional Nanoscale Adhesive Contacts

There are two separate traditional approaches to model contact problems: continuum and atomistic theory. Continuum theory is successfully used in many domains, but when the scale of the model comes to nanometer, continuum approximation meets challenges. Atomistic theory can catch the detailed behaviors of an individual atom by using molecular dynamics (MD) or quantum mechanics, although accurately, it is usually time-consuming. A multiscale method coupled MD and finite element (FE) is presented. To mesh the FE region automatically, an adaptive method based on the strain energy gradient is introduced to the multiscale method to constitute an adaptive multiscale method. Utilizing the proposed method, adhesive contacts between a rigid cylinder and an elastic substrate are studied, and the results are compared with full MD simulations. The process of FE meshes refinement shows that adaptive multiscale method can make FE mesh generation more flexible. Comparison of the displacements of boundary atoms in the overlap region with the results from full MD simulations indicates that adaptive multiscale method can transfer displacements effectively. Displacements of atoms and FE nodes on the center line of the multiscale model agree well with that of atoms in full MD simulations, which shows the continuity in the overlap region. Furthermore, the Von Mises stress contours and contact force distributions in the contact region are almost same as full MD simulations. The method presented combines multiscale method and adaptive technique, and can provide a more effective way to multiscale method and to the investigation on nanoscale contact problems.

Multiscale Analysis on Two-dimensional Nanoscale Adhesive Contacts

Nanoscale adhesive contacts play a key role in micro/nano-electro-mechanical systems as the dimension of the components come to nanometer.Experimental studies on nanoscale adhesive contacts are limited by some uncertain factors and the cost of experiments is too high.Besides,nanoscale textured surfaces are difficult to process and nanoscale adhesive contacts of textured surfaces are still lack of investigation.By using multiscale method,which couples molecular dynamics simulation and finite element method,two-dimensional nanoscale adhesive contacts between a rigid cylindrical tip and an elastic substrate are investigated.For the contacts between the rigid cylindrical tip and smooth surface,Von Mises stress distributions,the maximum Von Mises stresses,and contact forces are compared for different radii to show the size effects and adhesive effects.The phenomena of hysteresis are observed and more obvious as the radii of the tip increase.The influences of indentation depth and indentation speed are also discussed.Then two series of textured surfaces are employed,and the influences of the texture asperity shape,asperity height,and asperity spacing on contact forces are studied.The contact forces comparisons show that textured surfaces can reduce contact forces effectively in the range of the two series.Contact forces of textured surfaces increase as the asperity heights increase,and textured surfaces with smaller asperity spacing will get higher contact forces.Contact forces may be controlled through textured surfaces in the future.The obtained results will help to improve contact condition and provide theory basis for texture design.

Adhesive contact:from atomistic model to continuum model

Two types of Lennard-Jones potential are widely used in modeling adhesive contacts. However, the relationships between the parameters of the two types of Lennard-Jones potential are not well defined. This paper employs a self- consistent method to derive the Lennard-Jones surface force law from the interatomic Lennard-Jones potential with emphasis on the relationships between the parameters. The ei^ect of using correct parameters in the adhesion models is demonstrated in single sphere-flat contact via continuum models and an atomistic model. Furthermore, the adhesion hysteresis behaviour is investigated, and the S-shaped force-distance relation is revealed by the atomistic model. It shows that the adhesion hysteresis loop is generated by the jump-to-contact and jump-off-contact, which are illustrated by the S-shaped force-distance curve.

A mechanical model for the adhesive contact with local sliding induced by a tangential force

Adhesion has been demonstrated to play an important role in contact and friction between objects at small scales. While various models have been established for adhesive contact under normal forces, studies on the adhesive contact under tangential force have been far fewer, which if any, are mostly confined to the non-slipping situations. In the present work, a model has been proposed for adhesive contact with local sliding under tangential forces. Herein, the onset of local sliding in adhesive contact has been addressed by assuming the nucleation of dislocations. By analogy with the emission of dislocations at a crack tip, the critical tangential force for the onset of sliding has been determined, and its effect on the evolution of contact size has also been studied. Comparison with relevant experiments has verified the validity of the present model.

A multiscale modeling approach to adhesive contact

In order to model the adhesive contact across different length scales, a multiscale approach is developed and used to study the adhesive contact behaviors between a rigid cylinder and an elastic face-centered cubic (FCC) substrate. The approach combines an atomistic treatment of the interfacial region with an elastic mechanics method description of the continuum region. The two regions are connected by a coupling region where nodes of the continuum region are refined to atoms of the atomistic region. Moreover, the elastic constants of FCC crystals are obtained directly from the Lennard-Jones potential to describe the elastic response characteristics of the continuum region, which ensures the consistency of material proprieties between atomistic and con- tinuum regions. The multiscale approach is examined by comparing it with the pure MD simulation, and the results indicate that the multiscale modeling approach agrees well with the MD method in studying the adhesive contact behaviors.

Adhesive Contact of a One-Dimensional Hexagonal Quasicrystal Half-Space Punched by a Spherical Indenter

This paper develops the adhesive contact theory for a one-dimensional hexagonal quasicrystal half-space punched by a spherical indenter on the basis of the classical adhesive contact models involving the Johnson–Kendall–Roberts(JKR)model,the Maugis–Dugdale(MD)model and the Derjaguin–Muller–Toporov(DMT)model.By using the superposition principle combined with the Griffith energy balance,all the significant physical quantities for adhesive contact,such as the energy release rate,indentation force,penetration depth,contact radius and pull-out force,are obtained for different models.The result for the DMT model is derived from the MD solution through a limiting procedure.A numerical calculation is carried out to verify the present analytical solutions,to compare different contact models,and to analyze the influence of the phason field on the results.It is indicated that the effect of the phason field on the result for the MD model is pronounced,especially for a small contact radius.However,the phason effect on the JKR and DMT results is not significant.The present solution can serve as a theoretical basis for nano-indentation and atomic force microscopy to measure the material properties of quasicrystals.

Surface activity of cancer cells:The fusion of two cell aggregates

A key feature that distinguishes cancer cells from all other cells is their capability to spread throughout the body.Although how cancer cells collectively migrate by following molecular rules which influence the state of cell-cell adhesion contacts has been comprehensively formulated,the impact of physical interactions on cell spreading remains less understood.Cumulative effects of physical interactions exist as the interplay between various physical parameters such as(1)tissue surface tension,(2)viscoelasticity caused by collective cell migration,and(3)solid stress accumulated in the cell aggregate core region.This review aims to point out the role of these physical parameters in cancer cell spreading by considering and comparing the rearrangement of various mono-cultured cancer and epithelial model systems such as the fusion of two cell aggregates.While epithelial cells undergo volumetric cell rearrangement driven by the tissue surface tension,which directs cell movement from the surface to the core region of two-aggregate systems,cancer cells rather perform surface cell rearrangement.Cancer cells migrate toward the surface of the two-aggregate system driven by the solid stress while the surface tension is significantly reduced.The solid stress,accumulated in the core region of the two-aggregate system,is capable of suppressing the movement of epithelial cells that can undergo the jamming state transition;however,this stress enhances the movement of cancer cells.We have focused here on the multi-scale rheological modeling approaches that aimed at reproducing and understanding these biological systems.

Two-dimensional model of vesicle adhesion on curved substrates

We develop a two dimensional model of a vesicle adhered on a curved substrate via long-range molecular interactions while subjected to a detachment force. The relationship between the force and displacement of the vesicle is investigated as a function of the substrate shape. It is shown that both the force- displacement relationship and the maximum force at pull-off are significantly dependent on the substrate shape. The results suggest that probes with different tip shapes may be designed for cell manipulation. For example, we demonstrate that a vesicle can be pulled off a fiat surface using a probe with a curved tip.

Cyclic Bearing Mechanism of Suction Caissons Supporting Offshore Wind Turbines in Clay

The bearing behavior of suction caissons supporting offshore wind turbines under two-way cyclic lateral loading and dead load in clay was investigated with consideration of soil strength degradation and adhesive interface friction between caisson walls and heterogeneous clay using the finite-element package ABAQUS.An ABAQUS built-in user subroutine was programmed to calculate the adhesive interface friction between clay and caisson walls.The results of parametric studies showed that the degradation of bearing capacity could be aggravated by the decrease of the aspect ratio.The offset between the rotation point of the soil inside the caisson and the central axis of the caisson increased with the increasing vertical load and number of cycles.The linearly increasing strength profile and adhesive interface led to the formation of an inverted spoon failure zone inside the caisson.The settlement-rotation curves in each cycle moved downwards with increasing number of cycles due to the soil strength degradation.

Modeling and Simulation of Valve Cycle in Vein Using an Immersed Finite Element Method

A vein model was established to simulate the periodic characteristics of blood flow and valve deformation in blood-induced valve cycles.Using an immersed finite element method which was modified by a ghost fluid technique,the interaction between the vein and blood was simulated.With an independent solid solver,the contact force between vein tissues was calculated using an adhesive contact method.A benchmark simulation of the normal valve cycle validated the proposed model for a healthy vein.Both the opening orifice and blood flow rate agreed with those in the physiology.Low blood shear stress and maximum leaflet stress were also seen in the base region of the valve.On the basis of the healthy model,a diseased vein model was subsequently built to explore the sinus lesions,namely,fibrosis and atrophy which are assumed stiffening and softening of the sinus.Our results showed the opening orifice of the diseased vein was inversely proportional to the corresponding modulus of the sinus.A drop in the transvalvular pressure gradient resulted from the sinus lesion.Compared to the fibrosis,the atrophy of the sinus apparently improved the vein deformability but simultaneously accelerated the deterioration of venous disease and increased the risk of potential fracture.These results provide understandings of the normal/abnormal valve cycle in vein,and can be also helpful for the prosthesis design.

Discrete element method for adhesion properties evaluation of deep-sea sediment from macro and micro perspectives

The adhesion between the mining machine and the deep-sea sediments will significantly affect the driving performance of the mining machine in the deep-sea environment.When the mining machine and the deep-sea sediment interaction simulation was carried out,the accuracy of the particle interaction parameters will directly affect the simulation results.This study proposed a method to systematically calibrate the interaction parameters between deep-sea sediment and grouser through the combination of experiment and simulation.The uniaxial compression test and macro adhesion test and corresponding discrete element numerical simulation were carried out,modifying the contact parameters until the simulation results are close to the experimental results.Then the micro-parameters of the JKR adhesion contact model were back calibrated with the test results,and the contact parameters between soil particle-soil particle and soil particle-metal are calibrated.Besides,the adhesion test shows that the adhesion forces were ranked in the order of 5052<STi80<TA2<TC4 under the same surface roughness,which indicates the aluminum alloy 5052 has the best anti-adhesion performance.The relationship between surface adhesion force and microscopic contact parameters was studied by discrete element numerical simulation,and the result shows that the coefficient of static friction and the coefficient of rolling friction has little effect on adhesion force.While it is mainly affected by the coefficient of restitution and surface energy,the surface adhesion force tends to decrease with the increase of the coefficient of restitution and increase with the growth of surface energy.The obtained parameters of soil particle to soil particle and soil particle to metal affecting the adhesion can contribute to the design optimization for the grouser of mining machines to decrease surface adhesion and enhance its movability and mining efficiency.

Adhesion Performances Between Two Orthotropic Solids Influenced by Temperature Increment

The classical adhesive contact models belong to isothermal adhesion theories,where the effect of temperature on adhesion was neglected.However,a number of experimental results indicated that the adhesion behaviors can be significantly affected by temperature.In this paper,the two-dimensional non-slipping anisothermal adhesion behaviors between two orthotropic elastic cylinders are investigated within the framework of the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts theory.The stated problem is reduced to the coupled singular integral equations by virtue of the Fourier integral transform,which are solved analytically with the analytical function theory.The closed-form solutions for the stress fields in the presence of thermoelastic effect are obtained.The stable equilibrium state of contact system is determined by virtue of the Griffith energy balance.The effect of temperature difference on adhesion behaviors between orthotropic solids is discussed.It is found that the difference between the oscillatory and non-oscillatory solutions increases with increasing the degree of anisotropy of orthotropic materials.The oscillatory solution cannot be well approximated by the non-oscillatory solution for the orthotropic materials with relatively high anisotropy.

Filtration characteristics of a binary multi-layer granular bed flter based on CFD-DEM coupling simulation

The coupled CFD-DEM method with the JKR(Johnson-Kendall-Roberts)model for describing the contact adhesion of dust to filter particles(FPs)is used to simulate the distribution pattern of dust particle deposition in the granular bed filter(GBF)with multi-layer media.The minimum inlet flow velocity must meet the requirement that the contact probability between dust and FPs is in the high contact probability region.The air flow forms vortices on the leeward side of the FPs and changes abruptly at the intersection of different particle size FPs layers.Dust particles form large deposits at the intersection of the first and second layers and the different particle size filter layers.Dual element multilayer GBF can further optimize the bed structure by interlacing filter layers with different particle sizes.Compared with single particle size multi-layer GBF,the bed pressure drop is reduced by 40.24%-50.65%and the dust removal efficiency is increased by 21.93%-55.09%.

Nano-tribology through molecular dynamics simulations

The solidification and interfacial slip in nanometer-scale lubricating films as well as the contact and adhesion of metal crystals have been studied via molecular dynamics simulations. Results show that the critical pressure for the solid-liquid transition declines as the film thickness decreases, in-dicating that the lubricant in the thin films may exist in a solid-like state. It is also found that the interfa-cial slip may occur in thin films at relatively low shear rate, and there is a good correlation between the slip phenomenon and the lubricant solidification. The simulations reveal that a micro-scale adhesion may take place due to the atomic jump during the process of approaching or separating of two smooth crystal surfaces, which provides important information for understanding the origin of interfacial friction.