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Effects of contact shape on biological wet adhesion

  • Nano- and micromechanical properties of hierarchical biological materials
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Abstract

Wet adhesion is widely adopted in biological adhesion systems in nature. Wet adhesion is studied in this paper with the focus on the effect of different contact shapes (flat, concave, convex, and ring-like) on the adhesion force. The evolution of the liquid bridge between a fiber tip and substrate during the detaching process shows two transition points. The first transition from the radius-controlled to the contact-angle controlled process is critical to influence the strength and robustness of adhesion. We show that a concave shape is more effective than a flat one, while a convex shape has no advantage. A ring-like contact shape has advantages in a hydrophobic environment and on a rough surface.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China through Grant No. 10442002, 10502031, 10628205, 10121202, Tsinghua Basic Research Foundation, and National Basic Research Program of China through Grant No. 2004CB619304, and SRF for ROCS, SEM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Yewang Su, Baohua Ji & Kehchih Hwang

  2. Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Yonggang Huang

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  1. Yewang Su
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  2. Baohua Ji
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  3. Yonggang Huang
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  4. Kehchih Hwang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baohua Ji.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 1 Analytical solution of the axisymmetric liquid profile
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Su, Y., Ji, B., Huang, Y. et al. Effects of contact shape on biological wet adhesion. J Mater Sci 42, 8885–8893 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-007-1759-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-007-1759-7

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