 |
Armando's Project Page - CAMP Summer 2007 |
 |
Intern: Armando Marquez, Mechanical Engineering
Mentor: John Tamelier
Faculty Supervisor: Kimberly Turner
Department: Mechanical Engineering |
BIOLOGICAL INSPIRED REVERSIBLE ADHESIVE
The Tokay Gecko is the heaviest animal that uses an adhesion mechanism to stick to surfaces. The gecko is able to adhere to most surfaces using induced-dipole van der Waals forces. The gecko’s “setae”, a section of flesh that connects the toe to the nano-size “spatula” shaped tips, help facilitate the van der Waals forces. The current designs mimicking the gecko’s setae are micron size cantilevers that are created through microfabrication techniques. The cantilever arms are bent upward, due to residual stress from the microfabrication process, thereby increasing contact area with an incoming object. Once an object comes into contact with the cantilever, the cantilever adheres and is able to conform to the shape of the object. Tests prove that adhesion does occur; but releasing the object from the cantilever has yet to work successfully. The current method being tested is using thermal actuation as a means to release the object from the cantilever. By applying a voltage to the devices, the cantilever will begin to bend away and release itself from the object. Using a Doppler-shift laser vibrometer to measure out-of-plane velocity, the displacement is derived from this measurement. The results showed large displacements occurred at low frequencies and high voltages. Future research will to continue the development of the cantilever design to better imitate the gecko’s releasing mechanism.
Return to the CAMP 2007 project list
