Fundamental scales of adhesion and area-scale fractal analysis

This paper advances the discrete bonding model (DBM) for adhesion on rough substrate surfaces. The DBM supposes that adhesive strength can be determined from the relative. or normalized. area of the substrate surface at some fundamental scale. Relative area can be determined as a function of scale from a measured surface by area-scale fractal analysis, which uses repeated virtual tiling exercises. To the limits of the resolution of the treasured surface the fundamental scale of adhesion is found for four substrates treated by grit blasting and thermal spray coatings. This experimental support for the DBM suggests that there is good potential for using relative area determined by area-scale fractal analyses in establishing functional correlations, or functionality of surface textures. in a broad range of applications. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.