Angle-independent optimal adhesion in plane peeling of thin elastic films at large surface roughnesses

Adhesive peeling of a thin elastic film from a substrate is a classic problem in mechanics. However, many of the investigations on this topic to date have focused on peeling from substrates with flat surfaces. In this paper, we study the problem of peeling an elastic thin film from a rigid substrate that has periodic surface undulations. We allow for contact between the detached part of the film with the substrate. We give analytical results for computing the equilibrium force given the true peeling angle, which is the angle at which the detached part of the film leaves the substrate. When there is no contact we present explicit results for computing the true peeling angle from the substrate’s profile and for determining an equilibrium state’s stability solely from the substrate’s surface curvature. The general results that we derive for the case involving contact allow us to explore the regime of peeling at large surface roughnesses. Our analysis of this regime reveals that the peel-off force can be made to become independent of the peeling direction by roughening the surface. This result is in stark contrast to results from peeling on flat surfaces, where the peel-off force strongly depends on the peeling direction. Our analysis also reveals that in the large roughness regime the peel-off force achieves its theoretical upper bound, irrespective of the other particulars of the substrate’s surface profile.