Peeling flexible beams in viscous fluids: Rigidity and extensional compliance

We describe small angle peeling measurements in completely submerged environments to study the coupling between viscous forces and the mechanical properties of the plates being peeled. During the experiments, the plates resist motion because of lubrication forces while van der Waals forces between the plates and the static surface are negligible. In particular, we study the role played by flexural rigidity in the force-displacement curves and in the energy release rate. We show that the coupling between the viscous forces and the flexural rigidity of the plates dictates the shape and magnitude of the force-displacement curves. We develop simple scaling relationships that combine the lubrication forces with an Euler-Bernoulli beam to extract how the peak force and energy release rates depend on the ratio between rigidity and viscosity, and show good agreement between the predictions and experimental results. We also show that increasing the extensional compliance leads to a decrease in both the force-displacement curve and in the energy release rate. We then demonstrate that this reduction can be interpreted in terms of a stress decay length. Published by AIP Publishing.