No abstract

Geckos have developed foot pads that allow them to maintain their unique climbing ability despite vast differences of surfaces and environments, from dry desert to humid rainforest. Likewise, successful gecko-inspired mimics should exhibit adhesive and frictional performance across a similarly diverse range of climates. In this work, we focus on the effect of relative humidity (RH) on the "frictional-adhesion" behavior of gecko-inspired adhesive pads. A surface forces apparatus was used to quantitatively measure adhesion and friction forces of a microfibrillar cross-linked polydimethylsiloxane surface against a smooth hemispherical glass disk at varying relative humidity, from 0 to 100% (including fully submerged under water). Geometrically anisotropic tilted half-cylinder microfibers yield a "grip state" (high adhesion and friction forces after shearing along the tilt of the fibers, F and F) and a "release state" (low adhesion and friction after shearing against the tilt of the fibers, F and F). By appropriate control of the loading path, this allows for transition between strong attachment and easy detachment. Changing the preload and shear direction gives rise to differences in the effective contact area at each fiber and the microscale and nanoscale structure of the contact while changing the relative humidity results in differences in the relative contributions of van der Waals and capillary forces. In combination, both effects lead to interesting trends in the adhesion and friction forces. At up to 75% RH, the grip state adhesion force remains constant and the ratio of grip to release adhesion force does not drop below 4.0. In addition, the friction forces F and F and the release state adhesion force F exhibit a maximum at intermediate relative humidity between 40% and 75%.

Dry adhesives using surface microstructures inspired by climbing animals have been recognized for their potentially novel capabilities, with relevance to a range of applications including pick-and-place handling. Past work has suggested that performance may be strongly dependent on variability in the critical defect size among fibrillar sub-contacts. However, it has not been directly verified that the resulting adhesive strength distribution is well described by the statistical theory of fracture used. Using in situ contact visualization, we characterize adhesive strength on a fibril-by-fibril basis for a synthetic fibrillar adhesive. Two distinct detachment mechanisms are observed. The fundamental, design-dependent mechanism involves defect propagation from within the contact. The secondary mechanism involves defect propagation from fabrication imperfections at the perimeter. The existence of two defect populations complicates characterization of the statistical properties. This is addressed by using the mean order ranking method to isolate the fundamental mechanism. The statistical properties obtained are subsequently used within a bimodal framework, allowing description of the secondary mechanism. Implications for performance are discussed, including the improvement of strength associated with elimination of fabrication imperfections. This statistical analysis of defect-dependent detachment represents a more complete approach to the characterization of fibrillar adhesives, offering new insight for design and fabrication.

Abstract. We report a method for quantifying scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) probe-sample thermal interactions in-air using a novel temperature calibration device.This new device has been designed, fabricated and characterized using SThM to provide an accurate and spatially variable temperature distribution that can be used as a temperature reference due to its unique design. The device was characterized by means of a microfabricated SThM probe operating in passive mode. This data was interpreted using a heat transfer model, built to describe the thermal interactions during a SThM thermal scan. This permitted the thermal contact resistance between the SThM tip and the device to be determined as 8.33 × 10 5 K/W. It also permitted the probe-sample contact radius to be clarified as being the same size as the probe's tip radius of curvature.Finally, the data was used in the construction of a lumped-system steady state model for the SThM probe and its potential applications were addressed.2

Investigations of backing‐layer effects in bioinspired fibrillar adhesives have shown that increased compliance is detrimental to the strength of fibril arrays under normal loading due to an increase in severity of a circumferential load concentration. In this work, the impact of misalignment on the performance of fibrillar adhesive patches contacting smooth flat surfaces is examined, demonstrating that the conditions for circumferential detachment are extremely limited. For an array of fibrils on a backing layer of varying thickness, normal adhesion tests are performed against a flat surface that maintains a fixed angle of misalignment with respect to the adhesive surface. In the aligned state the detachment is circumferential and the detachment force is highest for the thinnest, least compliant backing layer. However, for misalignment angles on the order of just 0.1°, peel‐like detachments are observed. The thickest backing layer, being 210% more compliant than the thinnest, yields a 43% increase in the adhesive strength at a misalignment angle of 0.4°. This suggests that out‐with conditions of precise alignment, backing‐layer compliance is beneficial to strength under normal loading. A mechanical model is presented, revealing the mechanism behind enhanced resistance to peel propagation is deformation of the backing layer at the detachment front which reduces differential stretching of fibrils.