Effect of humidity on gecko adhesion
This is a brief summary of our previous work 1.Historically,many different mechanisms were proposed to account for geckos supernatural climbing capability.So far,only two mechanisms,the Van der Waals force and the capillary effect,seem to have survived experimental tests.While the Van der Waals force was convincingly shown for gecko adhesion,the capillary effect was also suggested from experimental observations that environmental humidity could play a significant role in gecko adhesion.To check the validity of capillary hypothesis,we have performed numerical simulations on the peeling of a single spatula pad from geckos toe attached periodically to a rough surface 1.Our simulations indicated that the moisture induced reduction in material stiffness could account for the experimentally observed increase in spatula pull-off force in a humid environment 1.This work suggested that the Van der Waals force might be the only mechanism in gecko adhesion 1.
gecko adhesion humidity effect capillary effect
Bin Chen Huajian Gao
Department of Engineering Mechanics,Zhejiang University,Hangzhou 310027,P.R.China School of Engineering,Brown University,Providence,RI 02912,USA
国际会议
北京
英文
1-3
2013-06-16（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）