Deformation of an elastic tube adhering onto a substrate due to van der Waals attractive interaction is investigated by means of computer simulation and scaling theory. The sum of the stretching, bending, and van der Waals energies of the tube is numerically minimized using the conjugate gradient method. The onset of the deformation and the total energy can be scaled with a variableCb/N2, whereCbis the bending constant andNthe size of the tube. For a significantly deformed tube, the scaling relation between the bending energy and the bending constant is explained within the shell theory. © 2004 American Institute of Physics