title: Discretely Supported Dry Adhesive Film Inspired by Biological Bending Behavior for Enhanced Performance on a Rough Surface.
abstract: Biologically inspired dry adhesion has recently become a research hot topic because of its practical significance in scientific research and instrumental technology. Yet, most of the current studies merely focus on borrowing the concept from some finer biological contact elements but lose sight of the foundation ones that play an equally important role in the adhesion functionality. Inspired by the bending behavior of the flexible foundation element of a gecko (lamellar skin) in attachment motion, in this study, a new type of dry adhesive structure was proposed, wherein a mushroom-shaped micropillar array behaving as a strongly adhesive layer was engineered on a discretely supported thin film. We experimentally observed and analytically modeled the structural deformation and found that the energy penalty could be largely reduced because of the partial shift from pillar bending to film bending. Such behavior is very analogous in functionality to the lamellar skin in a gecko's pads and is helpful in effectively limiting the damage of the contact interface, thus generating enhanced adhesion even on a rough surface.
authors.affiliation: Micro/Nanotechnology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Micro/Nanotechnology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China.
authors.forename: Hongmiao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Micro/Nanotechnology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China.
authors.forename: Jinyou
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2525-4587
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: Micro/Nanotechnology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China.
authors.forename: Xiangming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Micro/Nanotechnology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Micro/Nanotechnology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University , Beijing 10084, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7742-5611
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Micro/Nanotechnology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China.
authors.forename: Bingheng
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lu
keywords: bending behavior; biological foundation element; dry adhesive film; energy penalty; mushroom-shaped micropillar; rough surface