Journal of Adhesion Science and Technology, Vol.16, No.1, 33-45, 2002
The role of interfacial interactions and loss function of model adhesives on their adhesion to glass
The measurement of adhesion and the evaluation of influencing factors are of great scientific and technological importance. There are two distinct viewpoints on adhesion: (i) surface chemistry, and (ii) fracture mechanics. For elucidation of the relative importance of mechanical properties in the bonding of adhesives, the strength of adhesion between model adhesives and glass plates was measured by the wedge cleavage (WC) test method. Copolymers of methyl methacrylate (MMA) with n-butyl acrylate (nBA) and methyl methacrylate with styrene (S) were prepared as model adhesives. The results show that in MMA-nBA copolymers, by increasing the amount of nBA, both the loss function and the adhesion energy of the adhesives increase. However, by increasing the amount of nBA above a certain level, the adhesion strength begins to decrease. In this situation, the cohesive strength of the adhesive dominates the failure mechanism. On the other hand, a decrease in adhesion was expected upon increasing the amount of styrene in the poly(styrene-co-methyl methacrylate) adhesive, because methyl methacrylate, an interactive monomer with glass, is replaced by a non-interacting styrene monomer, while the loss function of the adhesive is almost constant. But our practical adhesion measurement technique was not sensitive enough to detect this adhesion loss.