Adhesion Society Divisions
The Adhesion Society contains three divisions: Soft Adhesives, Structural Adhesives, and Bioadhesion. Each division works with the program chairs to organize their sessions at the Annual Meeting. A description of each division is given below.
Soft Adhesives
“Soft Adhesives” encompass a broad range of materials, from traditional pressure sensitive adhesives (PSAs) to gels and elastomers. The Soft Adhesives Division of the Adhesion Society brings together an array of researchers interested in elucidating the fundamental physics, chemistry, and mechanics of soft adhesives, developing novel fabrication techniques for making soft adhesives, and advancing practical applications of this class of adhesives in commercial and industrial settings. Common experimental and theoretical techniques in the Division include tribology, rheology, wetting and dewetting experiments, explorations of elasto- and adheso-capillarity, mechanochemistry, click-chemistry, experiments probing macromolecular interactions, finite element simulations, and continuum mechanics. Over time, the topical theme of “Soft Adhesives” has naturally expanded to be broadly inclusive of research and researchers whose work intersects with the above topics and techniques.
Structural Adhesives
Within the Adhesion Society, the Structural Adhesives Division engages a strong network of academic, government, and industrial members and enables open communication over a broad range of issues arising in structural adhesion. Current areas of focus for the division are: fracture mechanics of structural adhesives; contamination by ice, water and insects; formulation, processing and surface preparation; and adhesion under extreme environments.
Bioadhesion
The Bioadhesion Division of the Adhesion Society seeks to capture the rich intersection between adhesion science and biological systems, including bioinspired approaches. The topics of the Division encompass but are not limited to organismal adhesion, bioinspired/biomimetic adhesives, biomedical adhesives, tissue, cell, virus and/or biomolecular adhesion. The Division equally seeks topics in the characterization of bioadhesion, including the development of testing methods, modeling with theory or computer simulations, and underwater adhesion and testing. In bioinspired adhesives, the Division seeks deep understanding of adhesion in biological and bioinspired systems to overcome challenges in current synthetic adhesive applications or in the development of new adhesive technologies. More recently, the Division invites topics that encompass engineered adhesives and approaches to address biomedical challenges such as in sealants, glues, topical patches, and other topics related to bonding tissues. Other recent topics include underwater adhesion and testing as well as cell and virus adhesion, which aim to understand and overcome challenges in bonding materials underwater. In the realm of cells and viruses, the Division invites work at the interface between cells, viruses, membranes and biomolecules, with important consequences in the health and life sciences. In 2023, the Division introduces a new session on complex coacervate-based biomaterials, with the aim of understanding their physics and mechanics toward potential applications in adhesives and coatings.