Rapid and continuous regulating adhesion strength by mechanical micro-vibration

Controlled tuning of interface adhesion is crucial to a broad range of applications, such as space technology, micro-fabrication, flexible electronics, robotics, and bio-integrated devices. Here, we show a robust and predictable method to continuously regulate interface adhesion by exciting the mech...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2020-03, Vol.11 (1), p.1583-1583, Article 1583
Main Authors: Shui, Langquan, Jia, Laibing, Li, Hangbo, Guo, Jiaojiao, Guo, Ziyu, Liu, Yilun, Liu, Ze, Chen, Xi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/166/988
639/301/119/544
639/766/119/544
Adhesion
Adhesive strength
Automation
Civil engineering
Control surfaces
Dynamic stability
Experiments
Fabrication
Flexible components
Humanities and Social Sciences
Industrial robots
Manufacturing engineering
Mechanics
multidisciplinary
Phase transitions
Polydimethylsiloxane
Robotics
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Silicone resins
Switching
Time
Tuning
Vibration
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Summary:Controlled tuning of interface adhesion is crucial to a broad range of applications, such as space technology, micro-fabrication, flexible electronics, robotics, and bio-integrated devices. Here, we show a robust and predictable method to continuously regulate interface adhesion by exciting the mechanical micro-vibration in the adhesive system perpendicular to the contact plane. An analytic model reveals the underlying mechanism of adhesion hysteresis and dynamic instability. For a typical PDMS-glass adhesion system, the apparent adhesion strength can be enhanced by 77 times or weakened to 0. Notably, the resulting adhesion switching timescale is comparable to that of geckos (15 ms), and such rapid adhesion switching can be repeated for more than 2 × 10 7 vibration cycles without any noticeable degradation in the adhesion performance. Our method is independent of surface microstructures and does not require a preload, representing a simple and practical way to design and control surface adhesion in relevant applications. Controlled tuning of surface adhesion is crucial to a broad range of applications. By simply introducing a mechanical micro-vibration, Shui et al. discover that the surface adhesion can be either enhanced by orders of magnitude or weakened to zero with a switching rate at millisecond timescale.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-020-15447-x