REVIEW OF INTERFACIAL DEBONDING BEHAVIOR OF ADHESIVE STRUCTURES WITH SOFT MATERIALS

Soft material has been widely used in soft robots, biomedicine, flexible electronics and other fields. In practical applications, soft material generally needs to be adhered to different types of substrate forming adhesive structures to accomplish specific functions. The interfacial performance of the adhesive system plays a key role in structural integrity and functional reliability. In this paper, the research efforts on the interfacial debonding behavior of adhesive structures with soft materials are systematically reviewed and summarized. The adhesive structures with soft materials can be classified into two types: (1) adhesive structures with “soft interface” in which stiff adherends are bonded by soft adhesives owning strong energy dissipative, typically viscoelastic, properties; (2) adhesive structures with “soft adherends” in which one or both of the adherends are significantly energy dissipative. In this paper, firstly, the specific mechanical characteristics and physical nature of the interfacial debonding behavior of the adhesive structures with soft materials are analyzed by comparing with those of the traditional “hard” adhesive structures. Secondly, the experimental characterization of the interfacial debonding behaviors of the adhesive structures with “soft interface” and “soft adherend” are summarized respectively. The effects of viscoelastic dissipative property of the adhesive interface and bulk adherends on the interfacial debonding mechanisms are analyzed respectively. Thirdly, the theoretical analysis methods for the interfacial debonding behavior of the adhesive structures with soft materials are reviewed and the relative theoretical models are summarized. Fourthly, the research progress of the numerical simulation, mainly based on the cohesive zone model (CZM) method, of the interfacial debonding behavior of the adhesive structures with soft materials is reviewed. Finally, based on the existing research progress, the challenges of the current research are put forward and the prospect of possible future research opportunities on the interfacial debonding behavior of adhesive structures with soft materials is discussed.