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A multidirectional base-mounted piezoelectric vibration energy harvester with a 2 mm ×2 mm ×20 mm polyurethane resonating beam, an 8.36-g tip mass, and a lead zirconium titanate (PZT) transducer was designed, fabricated, and tested. The harvester was shown to operate in any direction in a 2-D plane and produced as much as [Formula: see text] across a 50- [Formula: see text] load under harmonic base excitations with peak acceleration of 0.25 g at an angle of 45°. Experiments showed that, in some directions, the harvester had two resonant frequencies, one at 36.0 Hz and one at 38.5 Hz. Analysis shows that this phenomenon is caused by deviations in the shape of the polyurethane beam from the intended square cross section. This analysis is used to propose a method for designing harvesters with any two desired resonant frequencies. The possibility of using this design method to increase the harvester's bandwidth is discussed.

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Many organisms rely on densely packed, tilted and curved fibers of various dimensions to attach to surfaces. While the high elastic modulus of these fibers enables an extremely large number of fibers per unit area, where each fiber stands freely without sticking to its neighbors, the tilt/curvature provides them with the compliance and the directional adhesion properties to attach strongly and efficiently to a surface. Recent studies have revealed that many of such organisms also feature materials with a graded elastic modulus that is tailored towards improving the contact area without sacrificing the fiber density. In particular, for male ladybird beetles, research has shown that the adhesive setae feature a material gradient such that the elastic modulus of the material at the junction between the stalk and the divergent distal end is close to minimum. This soft material acts like a flexible joint, improving the bending compliance of the tip. Here, we mimic this feature using tilted, mushroom-like, stiff fibers comprised of a stiff stalk of elastic modulus 126 MPa, a softer tip of elastic modulus 8.89 MPa, and a joint-like element of elastic modulus 0.45 MPa (very soft), 8.89 MPa (soft), or 126 MPa (stiff) in between. The results from load-drag-pull (LDP) experiments performed along (gripping) and against (releasing) the tilt direction indicate that the soft and the very soft joint fibers performed superior to the stiff joint fibers and maintained directionally dependent performance. The soft joint fibers achieved up to 22 kPa in shear and 110 kPa in pull-off stress in the gripping direction, which are twice and ten times higher than that in the releasing direction, respectively. A model to optimize the elastic modulus of the joint-like elements to enable sliding without peeling of the tips has been proposed.

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Flow separation and vortex shedding are some of the most common phenomena experienced by bluff bodies under relative motion with the surrounding medium. They often result in a recirculation bubble in regions with adverse pressure gradient, which typically reduces efficiency in vehicles and increases loading on structures. Here, the ability of an engineered coating to manipulate the large-scale recirculation region was tested in a separated flow at moderate momentum thickness Reynolds number, [Formula: see text] We show that the coating, composed of uniformly distributed cylindrical pillars with diverging tips, successfully reduces the size of, and shifts downstream, the separation bubble. Despite the so-called roughness parameter, [Formula: see text], falling within the hydrodynamic smooth regime, the coating is able to modulate the large-scale recirculating motion. Remarkably, this modulation does not induce noticeable changes in the near-wall turbulence levels. Supported with experimental data and theoretical arguments based on the averaged equations of motion, we suggest that the inherent mechanism responsible for the bubble modulation is essentially unsteady suction and blowing controlled by the increasing cross-section of the tips. The coating can be easily fabricated and installed and works under dry and wet conditions, increasing its potential impact on a diverse range of applications.

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Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters often consist of a cantilevered beam composed of a support layer and one or two piezoelectric layers with a tip mass. While this configuration is advantageous for maximizing electromechanical coupling, the mechanical properties of the piezoelectric material can place limitations on harvester size and resonant frequency. Here, we present numerical and experimental results from a new type of piezoelectric energy harvester in which the mechanical properties and the resonant frequency of the cantilever beam resonator are effectively decoupled from the piezoelectric component. Referred to as a base-mounted piezoelectric (BMP) harvester in this paper, this new design features a piezoelectric transducer mounted beneath the base of the cantilevered beam resonator. The flexibility in the material choice for the cantilever beam resonator means that the resonant frequency and the beam dimensions are essentially free parameters. A prototype made with a 1.6 mm mm mm polyurethane beam, a PZT-5H piezoelectric transducer, and an 8.36-g tip mass is shown to produce an average power of 8.75 and at 45 Hz across a 13.0- load under harmonic base excitations of constant peak acceleration at 0.25 and 1.0-g, respectively. We also show an increase in full-width half-maximum bandwidth approximately from 1.5 to 5.6 Hz using an array of four individual BMP harvesters of similar dimensions with peak power generation of at 37.6 Hz across a 1.934- load at 0.25-g peak base excitation. Finite elements-based numerical simulations are shown to be in reasonable agreement with experimental results, indicating that the harvester behaves like a damped mass-spring system as proposed in this paper. Fabricated using casting and laser machining techniques, this harvester shows potential as a low-cost option for powering small, low-power wireless sensor nodes and other low-power devices.

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Synthetic fibrillar adhesives inspired by nature, most commonly by the gecko lizard, have been shown to strongly and repeatedly attach to smooth surfaces. These adhesives, mostly of monolithic construction, perform on par with their natural analogues on smooth surfaces but exhibit far inferior adhesive performance on rough surfaces. In this paper, we report on the adhesive performance of functionally graded microfibrillar adhesives based on a microfibre with a divergent end and a thin soft distal layer on rough surfaces. Monolithic and functionally graded fibre arrays were fabricated from polyurethanes and their adhesive performance on surfaces of varying roughness were quantified from force-distance data obtained using a custom adhesion measurement system. Average pull-off stress declined significantly with increasing roughness for the monolithic fibre array, dropping from 77 kPa on the smoothest (54 nm RMS roughness) to 19 kPa on the roughest (408 nm RMS roughness) testing surface. In comparison, pull-off stresses of 81 kPa and 63 kPa were obtained on the same respective smooth and rough surfaces with a functionally graded fibre array, which represents a more than threefold increase in adhesion to the roughest adhering surface. These results show that functionally graded fibrillar adhesives perform similar on all the testing surfaces unlike monolithic arrays and show potential as repeatable and reusable rough surface adhesives.

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Understanding how fluid flow interacts with micro-textured surfaces is crucial for a broad range of key biological processes and engineering applications including particle dispersion, pathogenic infections, and drag manipulation by surface topology. We use high-speed digital holographic microscopy (DHM) in combination with a correlation based de-noising algorithm to overcome the optical interference generated by surface roughness and to capture a large number of 3D particle trajectories in a microfluidic channel with one surface patterned with micropillars. It allows us to obtain a 3D ensembled velocity field with an uncertainty of 0.06% and 2D wall shear stress distribution at the resolution of ~65 µPa. Contrary to laminar flow in most microfluidics, we find that the flow is three-dimensional and complex for the textured microchannel. While the micropillars affect the velocity flow field locally, their presence is felt globally in terms of wall shear stresses at the channel walls. These findings imply that micro-scale mixing and wall stress sensing/manipulation can be achieved through hydro-dynamically smooth but topologically rough micropillars.

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Over the last decade, significant effort has been put into mimicking the ability of the gecko lizard to strongly and reversibly cling to surfaces, by using synthetic structures. Among these structures, mushroom-like elastomer fiber arrays have demonstrated promising performance on smooth surfaces matching the adhesive strengths obtained with the natural gecko foot-pads. It is possible to improve the already impressive adhesive performance of mushroom-like fibers provided that the underlying adhesion mechanism is understood. Here, the adhesion mechanism of bio-inspired mushroom-like fibers is investigated by implementing the Dugdale-Barenblatt cohesive zone model into finite elements simulations. It is found that the magnitude of pull-off stress depends on the edge angle θ and the ratio of the tip radius to the stalk radius ß of the mushroom-like fiber. Pull-off stress is also found to depend on a dimensionless parameter χ, the ratio of the fiber radius to a length-scale related to the dominance of adhesive stress. As an estimate, the optimal parameters are found to be ß = 1.1 and θ = 45°. Further, the location of crack initiation is found to depend on χ for given ß and θ. An analytical model for pull-off stress, which depends on the location of crack initiation as well as on θ and ß, is proposed and found to agree with the simulation results. Results obtained in this work provide a geometrical guideline for designing robust bio-inspired dry fibrillar adhesives.

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HeartLander is a medical robot proposed for minimally invasive epicardial intervention on the beating heart. To date, all prototypes have used suction to gain traction on the epicardium. Gecko-foot-inspired micro-fibers have been proposed for repeatable adhesion to surfaces. In this paper, a method for improving the traction of HeartLander on biological tissue is presented. The method involves integration of gecko-inspired fibrillar adhesives on the inner surfaces of the suction chambers of HeartLander. Experiments have been carried out on muscle tissue ex vivo assessing the traction performance of the modified HeartLander with bio-inspired adhesive. The adhesive fibers are found to improve traction on muscle tissue by 57.3 %.

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The effect of aspect ratio on the pull-off stress and stiffness of soft elastic fibres is studied using elasticity and numerical analysis. The adhesive interface between a soft fibre and a smooth rigid surface is modelled using the Dugdale-Barenblatt model. Numerical simulations show that, while pull-off stress increases with decreasing aspect ratio, fibres get stiffer. Also, for sufficiently low aspect ratio fibres, failure occurs via the growth of internal cracks and pull-off stress approaches the intrinsic adhesive strength. Experiments carried out with various aspect ratio polyurethane elastomer fibres are consistent with the numerical simulations.

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Thermoresponsive hydrogels with efficient water-release channels were prepared by incorporating star-shaped macromolecular pore precursors, with degradable disulfide crosslinked cores and hydrophilic poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) arms, into the gel network. The gel framework exhibiting lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior was synthesized by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of 2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl methacrylate and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate. The incorporation of degradable star macromolecules (dSM) was facilitated by growing the gel from ATRP initiator sites contained within their cores. Following the formation of the gel, the dSM cores were degraded, yielding uniform pores lined with hydrophilic PEO chains. The effect of hydrophilic pores on thermoresponsive hydrogel performances was studied by comparing hydrogels containing hydrophilic pores with analogous hydrogels with neutral pores or with pore-free controls. Dye absorption/release experiments pointed to the suitability of newly synthesized hydrogels as controlled-release media, for example, for drug delivery. Cell culture experiments confirmed their nontoxicity and biocompatibility (cell viability >98%).

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This work reports on repeatable adhesive materials prepared by controlled grafting of dangling hetero chains from polymer elastomers. The dangling chain elastomer system was prepared by grafting poly(n-butyl acrylate) (PBA) chains from prefunctionalized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer networks using atom transfer radical polymerization. To study the effects of chain growth and network strain as they relate to network adhesion mechanics, various lengths of PBA chains with degree of polymerizations (DP) of 65, 281, 508, and 1200 were incorporated into the PDMS matrix. PBA chains with a DP value of 281 grafted from a flat PDMS substrate showed the highest (approximately 3.5-fold) enhancement of nano- and macroscale adhesion relative to a flat raw (ungrafted and not prefunctionalized) PDMS substrate. Moreover, to study the effect of PBA dangling chains on adhesion in fibrillar elastomer structures inspired by gecko foot hairs, a dip-transfer fabrication method was used to graft PBA chains with a DP value of 296 from the tip endings of mushroom-shaped PDMS micropillars. A PBA chain covered micropillar array showed macroscale adhesion enhancement up to approximately 7 times relative to the flat ungrafted prefunctionalized PDMS control substrate, showing additional nonoptimized approximately 2-fold adhesion enhancement due to fibrillar structuring and mushroom-shaped tip ending. These dangling hetero chains on elastomer micro-/nanofibrillar structures may provide a novel fabrication platform for multilength scale, repeatable, and high-strength fibrillar adhesives inspired by gecko foot hairs.

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This paper proposes an approximate adhesion model for fibrillar adhesives for developing a fibrillar adhesive design methodology and compares numerical simulation adhesion results with macroscale adhesion data from polymer microfiber array experiments. A technique for fabricating microfibers with a controlled angle is described for the first time. Polyurethane microfibers with different hardnesses, angles, and aspect ratios are fabricated using optical lithography and polymer micromolding techniques and tested with a custom tensile adhesion measurement setup. Macroscale adhesion and overall work of adhesion of the microfiber arrays are measured and compared with the models to observe the effect of fiber geometry and preload. The adhesion strength and work of adhesion behavior of short and long vertical and long angled fiber arrays have similar trends with the numerical simulations. A scheme is also proposed to aid in optimized fiber adhesive design.

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