Forschung // 16. Dezember 2004

Design of biomimetic fibrillar interfaces

N. J. Glassmaker, T. Himeno, C.-Y. Hui , J. Kim

This paper explores the contact behaviour of simple fibrillar
interfaces designed to mimic natural contact surfaces in
lizards and insects. A simple model of bending and buckling of fibrils shows that such a structure can enhance compliance considerably.
Contact experiments on poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) fibrils
confirm the model predictions.
Besides our calculations involving a single fibril, we study
the concept of equal load sharing (ELS) for a perfect interface containing many fibrils. We obtain the practical work of
adhesion for an idealized fibrillated interface under equal load sharing. We then analyse the peeling of a fibrillar surface from a rigid substrate and establish a criterion for ELS.