Journal
BEILSTEIN JOURNAL OF NANOTECHNOLOGY
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages 1160-1166Publisher
BEILSTEIN-INSTITUT
DOI: 10.3762/bjnano.5.127
Keywords
adhesion; friction; insect biomechanics; tribology
Funding
- Max Planck Society
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Insects use either hairy or smooth adhesive pads to safely adhere to various kinds of surfaces. Although the two types of adhesive pads are morphologically different, they both form contact with the substrate via a thin layer of adhesive fluid. To model adhesion and friction forces generated by insect footpads often a simple wet adhesion model is used, in which two flat undeformable substrates are separated by a continuous layer of fluid. This review summarizes the key physical and tribological principles that determine the adhesion and friction in such a model. Interestingly, such a simple wet-adhesion model falls short in explaining several features of insect adhesion. For example, it cannot predict the observed high static friction forces of the insects, which enable them to cling to vertical smooth substrates without sliding. When taking a closer look at the classic attachment model, one can see that it is based on several simplifications, such as rigid surfaces or continuous layers of Newtonian fluids. Recent experiments show that these assumptions are not valid in many cases of insect adhesion. Future tribological models for insect adhesion thus need to incorporate deformable adhesive pads, non-Newtonian properties of the adhesive fluid and/or partially dry or solid-like contact between the pad and the substrate.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available