Spider Silk Inspired Functional Microthreads

We employ the adhesive web building strategy used by modern orb-weaving spiders to produce functional microthreads that are similar in structure (beads-on-a-string (BOAS) morphology) and adhesive properties to the capture-silk threads of the spider web. The diameter and spacing of droplets (beads) a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLangmuir Vol. 28; no. 4; pp. 2206 - 2210
Main Authors Sahni, Vasav, Labhasetwar, Disha V, Dhinojwala, Ali
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Chemical Society 31.01.2012
Subjects
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Biomimetics - methods
Microspheres
Microtechnology - methods
Silk
Spiders
Surface Tension
Viscosity
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Summary:We employ the adhesive web building strategy used by modern orb-weaving spiders to produce functional microthreads that are similar in structure (beads-on-a-string (BOAS) morphology) and adhesive properties to the capture-silk threads of the spider web. The diameter and spacing of droplets (beads) are controlled by varying the viscosity, velocity, and surface tension of the coating fluid. Using these functional threads, we also describe the behavior of the BOAS morphology during contact (mimicking the collision of an insect with the web) and during separation (mimicking insect rescue from the web). Our results show that the BOAS structure performs better than a cylindrical structure for adhesion, which may explain why this morphology is so prevalent in spider webs despite the cost of increasing the visibility of the web.
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ISSN:0743-7463
1520-5827
DOI:10.1021/la203275x