9. Adhesion with Elastomers

The application of the method of dimensionality reduction to adhesive contacts between elastic bodies is given by the rule of Heß (Eq. 4.1). However, this rule cannot be directly generalized to include contacts between viscoelastic bodies. This can already be seen in the fact that the “separation criterion” from Heß contains the modulus of elasticity. The effective modulus of elasticity of elastomers, however, is dependent on the deformation speed or frequency. Therefore, to be able to transfer the results of Heß to those of viscoelastic media, a better physical understanding of the phenomenon of adhesion is necessary. For this, it is helpful to consider a microscopic picture of an adhesive contact. The fundamentals of this were already described in Chap. 4. At this point, we will generalize these ideas for their application to viscoelastic media.