Increasing adhesion via a new electrode design and improved manufacturing in electrostatic/microstructured adhesives

This paper characterizes a new electrode design coupled with new fabrication methods to improve the performance of electrostatic/microstructured adhesives. The design is similar to a parallel plate capacitor in which one plate has “holes” or gaps. The gaps allow the electric field to “leak” through, which can, under certain circumstances, create a stronger electric field than a conventional design. The design was optimized using FEA, and experimental results show that combining the new design with an improved fabrication method that increases the flexibility of the adhesive results in a 6× increase in the shear stress to disengage the adhesive from the substrate.