A general expression for the maximum force in peeling a tape from a rigid substrate with an initial crack

ABSTRACT

Assuming a Dugdale cohesive zone, recently a simple Euler beam model has been proposed to understand the transient peeling on an elastic film from a rigid substrate at 90° from the substrate. The model also shows with sufficiently high bending stiffness, a peak force emerges larger than the Rivlin–Kendall steady-state value, scaling with the fourth root of bending stiffness. From the maximum force during peeling, and its steady-state value which is given by the Rivlin–Kendall well-known model, a simultaneous characterisation of the most important cohesive properties (cohesive strength and toughness of the interface) is obtained from a single test. This maximum force eventually saturates at a value which depends on cohesive strength alone. The presence of possibly inevitable initial cracks at the edge of the interface obviously reduces the peak force, and here, we give a simple closed-form approximate solution for this case too.

KEYWORDS:

• Peeling
• adhesion
• cohesion
• destructive testing
• adhesion by chemical bonding
• mechanical properties of adhesives

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

MC acknowledges support from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) under the program “Departments of Excellence” (L.232/2016).