Effect of bionic hexagonal texture on squeezing films inside soft contacts with high adhesion and high friction

To understand the mechanisms of high friction and high adhesion in bioinspired textured surfaces under wet conditions, the evolution behavior of squeezing films across lubricated interfaces is experimentally investigated using optical interferometry. The results show that the splitting of the continuous large-scaled liquid film into numerous isolated micro zones is an important function of the hexagonal texture. Both the orientation and the size of the hexagonal texture have noticeable effects on the drainage rate: either downscaling the hexagonal texture or orienting the texture with two sides of each micro-hexagon parallel to the inclining direction could accelerate the draining process. While the draining process is completed, residual micro-droplets turn out to be entrapped within the contact regions of single hexagonal micro-pillars. The entrapped micro-droplets gradually shrink as the hexagonal texture downsizes. Moreover, a novel geometrical shape for the micro-pillared texture is proposed to improve the drainage efficiency.