Natural and biomimetic artificial surfaces for superhydrophobicity, self-cleaning, low adhesion, and drag reduction

Nature has developed materials, objects and processes that function from the macroscale to the nanoscale. These have gone through evolution over 3.8Gyr. The emerging field of biomimetics allows one...

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2009.0011

Biomimetics: lessons from nature--an overview.

Mimicking natural superhydrophobic surfaces and grasping the wetting process: A review on recent progress in preparing superhydrophobic surfaces

The ability of gecko lizards to adhere to a vertical solid surface comes from their remarkable feet with aligned microscopic elastic hairs. By using carbon nanotube arrays that are dominated by a straight body segment but with curly entangled top, we have created gecko-foot-mimetic dry adhesives that show macroscopic adhesive forces of approximately 100 newtons per square centimeter, almost 10 times that of a gecko foot, and a much stronger shear adhesion force than the normal adhesion force, to ensure strong binding along the shear direction and easy lifting in the normal direction. This anisotropic force distribution is due to the shear-induced alignments of the curly segments of the nanotubes. The mimetic adhesives can be alternatively binding-on and lifting-off over various substrates for simulating the walking of a living gecko.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/322/5899/238.full.pdf

Carbon nanotube arrays with strong shear binding-on and easy normal lifting-off.

Directional arrays of branched microscopic setae constitute a dry adhesive on the toes of pad-bearing geckos, nature's supreme climbers. Geckos are easily and rapidly able to detach their toes as they climb. There are two known mechanisms of detachment: (1) on the microscale, the seta detaches when the shaft reaches a critical angle with the substrate, and (2) on the macroscale, geckos hyperextend their toes, apparently peeling like tape. This raises the question of how geckos prevent detachment while inverted on the ceiling, where body weight should cause toes to peel and setal angles to increase. Geckos use opposing feet and toes while inverted, possibly to maintain shear forces that prevent detachment of setae or peeling of toes. If detachment occurs by macroscale peeling of toes, the peel angle should monotonically decrease with applied force. In contrast, if adhesive force is limited by microscale detachment of setae at a critical angle, the toe detachment angle should be independent of applied force. We tested the hypothesis that adhesion is increased by shear force in isolated setal arrays and live gecko toes. We also tested the corollary hypotheses that (1) adhesion in toes and arrays is limited as on the microscale by a critical angle, or (2) on the macroscale by adhesive strength as predicted for adhesive tapes. We found that adhesion depended directly on shear force, and was independent of detachment angle. Therefore we reject the hypothesis that gecko toes peel like tape. The linear relation between adhesion and shear force is consistent with a critical angle of release in live gecko toes and isolated setal arrays, and also with our prior observations of single setae. We introduced a new model, frictional adhesion, for gecko pad attachment and compared it to existing models of adhesive contacts. In an analysis of clinging stability of a gecko on an inclined plane each adhesive model predicted a different force control strategy. The frictional adhesion model provides an explanation for the very low detachment forces observed in climbing geckos that does not depend on toe peeling.

/pdf/frictional-adhesion-a-new-angle-on-gecko-attachment-4kaek4feu2.pdf

Frictional adhesion: A new angle on gecko attachment.

https://www.maths.gla.ac.uk/~cc/geckos--GHJ-2005.pdf

Xiang Wang

Papers

Mechanics of hierarchical adhesion structures of geckos