Electroadhesion is the modulation of adhesive forces
through electrostatic
interactions and has potential applications in a number of next-generation
technologies. Recent efforts have focused on using electroadhesion
in soft robotics, haptics, and biointerfaces that often involve compliant
materials and nonplanar geometries. Current models for electroadhesion
provide limited insight on other contributions that are known to influence
adhesion performance, such as geometry and material properties. This
study presents a fracture mechanics framework for understanding electroadhesion
that incorporates geometric and electrostatic contributions for soft
electroadhesives. We demonstrate the validity of this model with two
material systems that exhibit disparate electroadhesive mechanisms,
indicating that this formalism is applicable to a variety of electroadhesives.
The results show the importance of material compliance and geometric
confinement in enhancing electroadhesive performance and providing
structure–property relationships for designing electroadhesive
devices.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.