Compliant surfaces with bumps

-- MicheleLanzetta? - 26 Jul 2004

I have made a bumped surface using a soft urethane resin (10A). This material is very sticky so it is hard to compare different shapes and I do not know yet if it behaves better than a plane surface with respect to the peeling problem, as per original intention. Also, better with respect to what:

• same weight?
• same total foot surface?
• same contact surface?

Bumps represent a possible solution as a support for dry adhesive skin (e.g. as an alternative to lamellae), in addition to other kinds of adhesives. Bumped surfaces are quite easy to manufacture manually, by heating and locally removing the mold wax (as in my first examplary prototype below). Batch production is also easy by standard machining or wax casting.

[Photo]

The intended use of bumped surfaces is described in the following scheme.

Bumps should integrate well with retractable spines as described in BumpRetractableSpineIntegration.