Gecko-inspired adhesive sticks during sloping

The polymer-silicone-rubber material is reportedly 100 times stronger under non-parallel contact.

The self-adaptive, core-shell dry adhesive has a ‘live core’ and uses gecko-inspired van der Waals force-based adhesion.

Non-parallel contact is a common problem in weaker adhesives, reducing their stability and efficiency.

The novel material consists of a mushroom-shaped, top adhesion tip and a bottom core-shell configuration to overcome this. The soft-shell can rotate, enabling stress equalisation and helps adapt to larger interfacial angle errors.

The Open Access paper, published in the journal Engineering reveals how the rotation’s effect was tested using finite element analysis. It reports better adhesion performance under preloads that remain under high-temperature and in water-rich environments.

The researchers claim this opens up potential in the robotic field.