The role of interfacial friction on the peeling of thin viscoelastic tapes

Abstract

We study the peeling process of a thin viscoelastic tape from a rigid substrate. Two different boundary conditions are considered at the interface between the tape and the substrate: stuck adhesion, and relative sliding in the presence of frictional shear stress. In the case of perfectly sticking interface, we found that the viscoelastic peeling behavior resembles the classical Kendall behavior of elastic tapes, with elastic modulus given by the tape high-frequency viscoelastic modulus. Including the effect of frictional sliding, which occurs at the interface contiguous to the peeling front, makes the peeling behavior strongly dependent on the peeling velocity. We also predict a significant toughening of the peeling process, that occurs when the peeling angle si reduced to sufficiently small values. This phenomenon is in agreement with recent experimental results related to the low-angle peeling of elastic tapes under frictional sliding at the interface, which have been regarded as a possible mechanism exploited by biological systems (e.g. geckos, spiders) in controlling attachment force and locomotion.