Modeling of van der Waals Forces during the Assembly of Micro Devices

This paper discusses modeling of adhesive forces which come into play during gripping activities in the context of micro devices assembly (MDA) When complex designs for micron sized parts cannot be manufactured using MEMS techniques, they have to be assembled. Adhesive forces have three components: van der Waals, surface tension and electrostatic forces. An overview of preliminary models focusing on the interaction of a manipulator and target parts is the focus of discussion in this paper. A sphere packing approach is proposed to model the VDW force interactions between two micro bodies.