A Study on Adhesive Properties of Materials Based on Biomimetic Results of Gecko′s Feet

Many animals have a magic ability to move or hold on ceilings and walls because of the design of their adhesive pads. The experiments were carried out to study the effects of material properties (elastic modulus EM and chemical components CC) and contact geometry (surface roughness, connecting stiffness) on their adhesive properties. The adhesion of the lowest EM samples is the highest (15 kPa) and the surface roughness has strong effects on adhesion and the adhesion decreases to 1.5 kPa for the highest EM samples. The adhesive forces are heavily influenced by CC of polyurethane. Surface roughness heavily influences the adhesion and when the roughness is higher than R a 0.3 μm, the obtained adhesion of the samples is the same. The adhesion does not change with the normal forces when a sphere is used to contact with flat PU samples. But when the two matually contact surfaces are flat, the adhesion of a material increases with the normal load at first and then turns to slightly raise. The adhesion of them is the same for the contact angles from 1 to 3 degree when the samples are softly connected. But when they are adhesive hardly to each other the adhesion decreases with increase of the contact angle.