title: Close-up of mushroom-shaped fibrillar adhesive microstructure: contact element behaviour.
abstract: To analyse the performance of mushroom-shaped fibrillar adhesive microstructure, its behaviour was studied during different stages of attachment-loading-detachment cycle. Visualizing the evolutions of real contact area of single microfibres, it is shown that the mushroom-shaped geometry of contact elements promotes fast and simple generation of reliable adhesion. The mushroom-shaped geometry seems to transform fibrillar contact elements into passive suction devices and makes them tolerant to overload, thus enhancing their robustness and stability. These findings may also be extrapolated to biological fibrillar attachment devices sharing the same geometry.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thin Films and Biological Systems, Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, Heisenbergstrasse 3, Stuttgart 70569, Germany. varenberg@mf.mpg.de
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Varenberg
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gorb
mesh_terms: D008422:Materials Testing; D013450:Sulfones; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D013450:Sulfones; C512310:phenyl vinyl sulfone