Capillary and surface tension forces in the manipulation of small parts

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of surface tension in the manipulation of small parts (10 /spl mu/m-10 mm). After a short overview of the literature on adhesion forces in micromanipulation (section 2), we will focus on the roles of surface tension in adhesion (section 3). Section 4 is a brief review of the parameters and assumptions involved in adhesion due to liquids. Section 5 proposes a numerical approach to compute the capillary and surface tension forces between parts linked by an axially symmetrical meniscus. After validation, the model is used to simulate a dynamic manipulation of a millimetric part and we will describe how this simulation tool can be used to design an adapted actuator and effector (section 6). Finally, guidelines for further works are proposed in section 7.