On the effective surface energy in viscoelastic Hertzian contacts

Abstract Viscoelasticity and rate-dependent adhesion of soft matter lead to difficulties in modelling the ’relatively simple’ problem of a rigid sphere in contact with a viscoelastic half-space. For this reason, approximations in describing surface interactions and viscous dissipation processes are usually adopted in the literature. Here, we develop a fully deterministic model in which adhesive interactions are described by Lennard-Jones potential and the material behaviour with the standard linear solid model. Normal loading–unloading cycles are carried out under different driving conditions. When loading is performed in quasi-static conditions and, hence, unloading starts from a completely relaxed state of the material, the effective surface energy is found to monotonically increase with the contact line velocity up to an asymptotic value reached at high unloading rates. Such result agrees with existing theories on viscoelastic crack propagation. If loading and unloading are performed at the same non-zero driving velocity and, hence, unloading starts from an unrelaxed state of the material, the trend of the effective surface energy Δ γ eff with the contact line velocity is described by a bell-shaped function in a double-logarithmic plot. The peak of Δ γ eff  is found at a contact line velocity smaller than that makes maximum the tangent loss of the viscoelastic modulus. Furthermore, we show Gent&Schultz assumption partly works in this case as viscous dissipation is no longer localized along the contact perimeter but it also occurs in the bulk material.