Adherence of composite microfibrillar arrays to rough surfaces

摘要

The adherence of composite mushroom-like fiber arrays to smooth and rough surfaces, in comparison to monolithic fibers, was investigated in this work. Experiments performed with five different surfaces ranging from smooth to rms roughness of 348 nm showed enhancement of up to 73% with composite fiber arrays over monolithic ones. These results show promise in the ability of bioinspired composite fiber arrays to enhance performance on rough surfaces and in ultimately enabling the use of bioinspired fibrillar structures as universal adhesives.