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Observations of shear adhesive force and friction of Blatta orientalis on different surfaces

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Abstract

The shear adhesive force of four non-climbing cockroaches (Blatta orientalis Linnaeus, 1758) was investigated by the use of a centrifugal machine, evaluating the shear safety factor (adhesion force divided by body weight) on six surfaces (steel, aluminium, copper, two sandpapers and a common paper sheet) having different roughness. The adhesive system of Blatta orientalis was characterized by means of a field emission scanning electron microscope and the surface roughness was determined by an atomic force microscope. The cockroach maximum shear safety factor, or apparent friction coefficient, is determined to be 12.1 on the less rough of the two sandpapers, while its minimum value is equal to 1.9 on the steel surface. A two-sample Student t analysis has been conducted in order to evaluate the significance of the differences among the obtained shear safety factors due to both roughness and chemistry. An interesting correlation between cockroach shear adhesion and surface roughness emerges with a threshold mechanism dictated by the competition between claw tip radius and roughness, indicating that the best adhesion is obtained for roughness larger than the claw tip radius.

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Acknowledgements

NMP is supported by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant BIHSNAM on “Bioinspired hierarchical super-nanomaterials” and ERC Proof of Concept REPLICA) and by the Graphene Flagship. The authors would like to thank F. Casini for his advice and for providing the insects, M. Binda at the LabSamp of Politecnico di Milano for her helpfulness in the surface analysis and E. Enrico at NanoFacility Piemonte, INRiM, a laboratory supported by Compagnia di San Paolo, for his help in performing the FESEM micrographs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Bio-inspired Nanomechanics “Giuseppe Maria Pugno”, Department of Structural Engineering and Geotechincs, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Torino, Italy

    E. Lepore, P. Brambilla & A. Pero

  2. Laboratory of Bio-inspired & Graphene Nanomechanics, Department of Mechanical and Structural Engineering, University of Trento, Via Mesiano, 77, 38123, Trento, Italy

    N. Pugno

  3. Center for Materials and Microsystems, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Via Sommarive 18, 38123, Povo (Trento), Italy

    N. Pugno

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  1. E. Lepore
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Correspondence to N. Pugno.

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Lepore, E., Brambilla, P., Pero, A. et al. Observations of shear adhesive force and friction of Blatta orientalis on different surfaces. Meccanica 48, 1863–1873 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11012-013-9796-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11012-013-9796-6

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