An Introduction to Biomimetic Underwater Adhesion System

Adhesion system is of great importance to underwater grasp and manipulation, however, the adhesion systems artificially designed at present are often inefficient, complex and unstable. The natural organisms evolved adhesion are more efficient, finer and more ingenious. Learning adhesion mechanism from nature adhesion system is of great importance. In this paper, we reviewed four kinds of underwater creatures, whose living environment range from ocean to streamlet to mammal body fluid, and analyzed their adhesion mechanism both from macroscopic and microcosmic perspective, and we concluded that the adhesion system of natural underwater organisms generally adopted negative pressure adhesion and assisted with other kinds of adhesion forces to resist tangential force. The adhesion system was a macrostructure combined with micro and nano structures, and the macro structure played a supporting role to form negative pressure. The microstructure was mainly auxiliary to form better seal and increase friction force to resist shear force. Finally, we suggested that, we could study the adhesion system mainly from the perspective of micro and nano structure, and the study of the interfacial force of the liquid-solid interface may also help.