Water striders capture the amazing feature to walk on water surface, and this phenomenon triggered extensive investigations in the past decades. We model the strider leg as a fiber vertically pressing into water surface and explore some striking mechanics behaviors in this process. First, the meniscus morphology is exactly solved by a numerical scheme. Based upon this solution, a non-dimensional parameter is defined in order to properly characterize the “capillary effect” of the objects with different volumes. The discussion of the buoyant force shows that the apparent contact angle has little impact on the variation of the water-supporting force. Besides this, there is no need for the strider leg to pierce into water, for the pinning of the triple contact line ensures a bigger buoyant force. In addition, the radius of the leg should be in an appropriate range to support the body weight. These analyses may cast light on how to design new-typed miniature aquatic devices.
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9 June 2014
Research Article|
June 11 2014
Biomimetic mechanics behaviors of the strider leg vertically pressing water
Jianlin Liu;
Jianlin Liu
a)
1Department of Engineering Mechanics,
China University of Petroleum
, Qingdao 266580, China
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Jing Sun;
Jing Sun
1Department of Engineering Mechanics,
China University of Petroleum
, Qingdao 266580, China
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Yue Mei
Yue Mei
2Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Texas A and M University
, College Station, Texas 77840, USA
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a)
E-mail: liujianlin@upc.edu.cn
Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 231607 (2014)
Article history
Received:
April 22 2014
Accepted:
June 01 2014
Citation
Jianlin Liu, Jing Sun, Yue Mei; Biomimetic mechanics behaviors of the strider leg vertically pressing water. Appl. Phys. Lett. 9 June 2014; 104 (23): 231607. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4883493
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