Adhesive behaviour of gecko-inspired nanofibrillar arrays: combination of experiments and finite element modelling

A polypropylene nanofibrillar array was successfully fabricated by template-assisted nanofabrication strategy. Adhesion properties of this gecko-inspired structure were studied through two parallel and independent approaches: experiments and finite element simulations. Experimental results show relatively good normal adhesion, but accompanied by high preloads. The interfacial adhesion was modelled by effective spring elements with piecewise-linear constitution. The effective elasticity of the fibre-array system was originally calculated from our measured elasticity of single nanowire. Comparisons of the experimental and simulative results reveal quantitative agreement except for some explainable deviations, which suggests the potential applicability of the present models and applied theories.