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SUMMARY:Defect tolerance and design principles for bio-inspired fibrillar 
 dry-adhesives - Mattia Bacca\, Assistant Professor\, Mechanical Engineerin
 g Department\, The University of British Colombia\, Vancouver
DTSTART:20170804T130000Z
DTEND:20170804T140000Z
UID:TALK74181@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Hilde Hambro
DESCRIPTION:Bio-inspired fibrillar dry-adhesives have been prototyped to m
 imic the extraordinary reusability of natural adhesive systems such as the
  ones observed in insects and geckos. These adhesives rely on the utilizat
 ion of short-range intermolecular (Van der Waals) forces harnessed by inti
 mate contact at the tips of small interfacial structures called fibrils. T
 he quality of the adhesive bond in these systems is related to the load di
 stribution at the interface and it should be observed at multiple length s
 cales. The goal for an optimal adhesive strength is to obtain equal load s
 haring (ELS) across the whole interfacial area. The physical and geometric
 al properties of the whole fibrillar system are key features to determine 
 the global adhesive strength of it. While there have been extensive invest
 igations on obtaining ELS within the tip of a single fibril\, very limited
  attention has been dedicated to obtaining ELS across a whole array of fib
 rils\, focusing on the mutual interaction among them. We simulated the det
 achment mechanism in such a system and developed a simple mathematical mod
 el to account for load redistribution among fibrils. Finally\, we calculat
 ed the ideal distribution of fibril properties to obtain ELS at the fibril
 lar array length scale. The design criterion that emerges from this is tes
 ted in the presence of contact defects in the form of (i) interfacial misa
 lignment and (ii) localized regions of contact failure. In these cases\, w
 e evidence how the compliance of the backing layer\, considered detrimenta
 l for the overall performance of the adhesive system\, can be exploited to
  gain improved defect tolerance.
LOCATION:JDB Seminar Room\, CUED
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