Nanomechanics of Biologically Inspired Repeatable and Hierarchical Elastomer Fibrillar Adhesives

该奖项的研究目标是开发一种以壁虎脚毛为灵感的最佳合成纤维粘合剂的设计方法，提高我们对生物启发的纤维阵列粘合的详细纳米机械理解，并制造和展示类似于其生物同行的分级合成纤维粘合剂。这项工作中提出的研究突破是发展了一种设计方法，利用连续统理论纳米力学模型来制造分级和高性能的生物启发纤维粘结剂。这些改进的理论纤维纳米力学模型和合成的多层次纤维粘合剂将促进生物灵感粘合剂和纳米纤维粘合、接触和断裂力学的研究，并将在不久的将来生产出新的自清洁和可重复使用的粘合剂商业产品。如果研究成功，这一研究成果将为在纺织、生物医学、航天、体育、娱乐、产品设计、机器人和包装行业创造新的可重复使用的粘合剂产品提供机会。这项提议中的跨学科研究工作将转移到机械工程、生物医学工程和材料科学的许多教育活动中。由首席研究员开发的微/纳米机器人课程将在这个项目中使用生物启发的粘合剂和材料的概念、模型和制造设备，在长达一个学期的学生项目中设计和实施新的生物启发纳米材料。该项目的研究成果将通过公开讲座和暑期实习向儿童、K-12学生和教师以及大学生传播。这个项目将在生物启发的纳米材料和纳米机械领域培训未被充分代表的研究生和本科生。

The research objective of this award is to develop a design methodology for optimal synthetic fibrillar adhesives inspired by gecko foot-hairs, to improve our detailed nanomechanical understanding of biologically inspired fiber array adhesion, and to fabricate and demonstrate hierarchical synthetic fibrillar adhesives similar to their biological counterparts. The research breakthrough proposed in this work is the development of a design methodology for the fabrication of hierarchical and high performance biologically inspired fibrillar adhesives using continuum theoretical nanomechanical models. These improved theoretical fibrillar nanomechanical models and fabricated synthetic multi-level fibrillar adhesives will advance research of biologically inspired adhesives and nanofiber adhesion, contact, and fracture mechanics and will produce new self-cleaning and repeatable adhesive commercial products in the near future.If successful, the results of this research will provide an opportunity to create new repeatable adhesive products in textile, biomedical, space, sports, entertainment, product design, robotics, and packaging industry. Interdisciplinary research work in this proposal will be transferred to many educational activities in mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and materials science. Micro/Nano-Robotics course developed by the principle investigator will use the biologically inspired adhesive and material concepts, models, and fabrication facilities in this project to design and implement new biologically inspired nanomaterials in student semester-long projects. The research results of this project will be disseminated to children, K-12 students and teachers, and college students through public lectures and summer internships. This project will train underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students in biologically inspired inspired nanomaterials and nanomechanics fields.