A Novel Calculation Method for Adhesive Contact Interactions of Three-Dimensional Randomly Rough Surfaces

The debate on the effect of roughness on adhesion is crucial and open yet in contact mechanics. However, exploring the adhesive contact mechanisms of three-dimensional randomly rough surfaces coupling with elastic–plastic behaviors seems blank. This work first provides a comprehensive finite element method for analyzing the adhesive contact of three-dimensional randomly Weibull rough surfaces based on the Derjaguin approximation and the Lennard–Jones potential. The results demonstrate that roughness kills adhesion due to the contribution of inhomogeneous attractions and even repulsions. The adhesion diminishes as the scale parameter increases, the shape parameter decreases, or the thermodynamic work of adhesion decreases. Furthermore, the relationship between the decrement of pull-off force and RMS roughness is quantitatively formulated by introducing a correction parameter as a preliminary attempt from the numerical view for the open debate.