ABSTRACT
The excess adhesion at a specific separation rate is the adhesion at this rate minus the adhesion at an infinitely slow separation rate. In Fig. 5 we show that the excess adhesion is a function of the separation rate to the power of 0.48. This is similar to that found by Ruths et al. [27] for the interaction of various polymer layers in air where their data were reasonably well fitted to a power law with an exponent of 0.5. Greenwood and Johnson [28] have previously shown theoretically that the excess adhesion should increase with the crack propagation rate to the power of 0.5.
