Experimental Study on the Adhesion of Abalone to Surfaces with Different Morphologies

TL;DR

This study explores how abalone adhere to surfaces with different textures, revealing how their foot adapts to various surface morphologies.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into abalone adhesion mechanisms on non-smooth surfaces using experimental measurements.

Findings

Abalone adhere effectively to block pattern and small lattice pit glass plates due to the elasticity of their abdominal foot.

Adhesion to quadrangular conical and frosted glass plates showed no significant difference compared to smooth surfaces.

The abdominal foot forms independent sucker systems on small lattice pits, enhancing adhesion.

Abstract

To date, research on abalone adhesion has primarily analyzed the organism’s adhesion to smooth surfaces, with few studies on adhesion to non-smooth surfaces. The present study examined the surface morphology of the abalone’s abdominal foot, followed by measuring the adhesive force of the abalone on a smooth force measuring plate and five force measuring plates with different surface morphologies. Next, the adhesion mechanism of the abdominal foot was analyzed. The findings indicated that the abdominal foot of the abalone features numerous stripe-shaped folds on its surface. The adhesion of the abalone to a fine frosted glass plate, a coarse frosted glass plate, and a quadrangular conical glass plate was not significantly different from that on a smooth glass plate. However, the organism’s adhesion to a small lattice pit glass plate and block pattern glass plate was significantly different. The abalone could effectively adhere to the surface of the block pattern glass plate using the elasticity of its abdominal foot during adhesion but experienced difficulty in completely adhering to the surface of the quadrangular conical glass plate. The abdominal foot used its elasticity to form an independent sucker system with each small lattice pit, significantly improving adhesion to the small lattice pit glass plate. The elasticity of the abalone’s abdominal foot created difficulty in handling slight morphological size changes in roughness, resulting in no significant differences in its adhesion to the smooth glass plate.

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