Climbing a glass wall with gecko gloves — is this possible? Geckos tear across ceilings and walls and seem untroubled by the laws of gravity. They can even climb easily on perfectly smooth sheets of glass...
...This has resulted in many scientists rising to the challenge of developing a climbing tool that will let people climb walls "gecko-style".
At Stanford University, Elliot Hawkes and his team have managed to develop just climbing equipment. Their equipment is based on the principle of geckos' adhesive feet and exceeds even their grip. A 70-kilo man only needs two hand-sized adhesive pads to climb a glass façade. How geckos' feet naturally work has been known for some time. The lizards use the so-called van der Waals force, which it is a phenomenon that occurs at the atomic level. If two atoms or two molecules come very close together, they influence each other so that they stick together electrically. This sticking effect is so small that you can barely feel it.
The hands and feet of geckos have hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs, and this weak electrical bonding effect acts on each of these hairs. The stickiness thus adds up across the entire gecko's foot.
The adhesive pads presented by the scientists differ from their biological model in some respects. A plastic with a grooved microstructure is used, not microscopic hairs, as this sticks even better to smooth surfaces. In addition, the surface of the adhesive pads is made up of many smaller individual surfaces. As a result, the load is distributed evenly, and a hand-sized area is sufficient to stick a man to a wall. What's more, in contrast to geckos, human climbers need only two adhesive feet, not four. A rod is attached to each adhesive pads, which connects to a step for the feet. For a person to climb, he or she must alternately detach and reattach the foot and hand on one side of the body.
The next step is to check whether the equipment also works on unclean surfaces, so that such a system is really suitable for everyday use.
Source: Spiegel Science
