An improved method for the measurement of adhesion energy by using a nano-cutting machine

A novel procedure is proposed which improves the application of the knife-cutting method to estimate adhesion energy. The origin of a previously reported difficulty in determining the force exerted by the cutting blade to the specimen in removing the coatings is identified and a method to overcome this difficulty is developed. The essential point of the method is to detect the “critical normal load”. The value of this load and that of the parallel load are used to obtain the adhesion energy and the energy for the deformation of the removed part of the coating.