UNS: Designing insect-inspired self-cleaning surfaces

CBET -1510884 PI：Hu，David飞虫的眼睛有柔软的毛发分布在它们的表面，使眼睛免受空气中颗粒的污染。 经过毛发的空气流减少了空气传播的颗粒存款在眼睛上的倾向，并且毛发可以在空气传播的颗粒接触眼睛之前捕获并去除它们。 该项目将研究昆虫眼睛的这两个特征，并利用研究结果开发一种合成的自清洁表面。 合成表面将使用精细的聚合物刷毛来模仿昆虫的毛发并执行自清洁功能。 本研究成果可应用于自清洁传感器、太阳能电池、透镜等器件的设计与制作。 该团队将把他们的研究纳入一个名为“我们的毛茸茸的世界，“，让学生了解工程师和科学家如何利用生物学成果来改进技术。该项目包括一系列实验和数值模拟，以探索昆虫眼睛上的刚毛如何转移进入的气流，以减少空气中的颗粒物沉积，以及昆虫梳理过程中储存的弹性能量如何释放从刷毛上弹掉颗粒。 跨学科研究团队将测量昆虫眼睛尺寸范围内刷毛的几何形状和间距，使用软聚合物制造刷毛表面，对刷毛阵列的流动进行计算机模拟，测量昆虫眼睛和合成刷毛表面上的颗粒沉积速率，并且在昆虫梳理期间量化颗粒去除，并且在播种有用于磁激活的铁颗粒的聚合物刷毛中复制该功能。 该项目的结果将有助于改进微电子和其他小型设备组件的设计。

CBET - 1510884PI: Hu, DavidThe eyes of flying insects have soft hairs distributed across their surfaces that keep the eyes clean of airborne particles. The air flow past the hairs reduces the tendency of airborne particles to deposit on the eye, and the hairs can trap and remove airborne particles before they contact the eye. This project will study these two characteristics of the insect eye and use the findings to develop a synthetic self-cleaning surface. The synthetic surface will use fine polymer bristles to mimic the insect's hairs and carry out the self-cleaning functions. The results of this research could be applied to design and fabricate self-cleaning sensors, solar cells, lenses and other devices. The team will incorporate their research into an educational module titled "Our Hairy World," which will enable students to understand how engineers and scientists can use results from biology to improve technology.The project comprises a series of experiments and numerical simulations to explore how the bristles covering insect eyes divert incoming airflows to reduce airborne particle deposition and how the release of stored elastic energy during insect grooming flicks off particles from the bristles. The interdisciplinary research team will measure the geometry and spacing of bristles in a range of insect eye sizes, fabricate bristled surfaces using soft polymers, conduct computer simulations of flow through bristle arrays, measure the rate of particle deposition on insect eyes and onto synthetic bristled surfaces, and quantify particle removal during insect grooming and replicate this function in a polymeric bristle seeded with iron particles for magnetic activation. Results of the project will be useful in improved design of microelectronics and other small-scale device components.