Growth of adhesive contacts for Maxwell viscoelastic spheres

Researchers applied a formulation which includes both elastic adhesion and sintering to the study of coalescence of a Maxwell viscoelastic sphere to a rigid flat surface. The initial coalescence is due to elastic adhesion then a zipping mechanism causes a transition to viscous sintering. This zipping mechanism is due to attractive forces outside the area of contact. The next stage in the process is a stretching mode of coalescence which is due to curvature-based tractions. The contact radius at which the transition from zipping to stretching modes occurs is related to the sphere radius.