Unsmooth cuticles of soil animals and theoretical analysis of their hydrophobicity and anti-soil-adhesion mechanism

Abstract

Soil adhesion is a natural phenomenon, and it is harmful to terrain machines and tillage equipment that have soil as their work medium, such as automobiles, tractors, earth-moving machines, spades, hoes, and plows. Soil adhesion increases motion resistance and energy consumption, quickens damage to the soil-engaging components, and lowers work quality. The biomimetic research has provided a promising method to solve the soil adhesion problem. In this work, the cuticles of typical soil animals were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and their wettability and mechanism of antiadhesion were analyzed in theory. The results of experimental observation have shown that the cuticles of soil animals have different unsmooth appearances, such as pimple-shaped, pit-like, and undee structures. But for the cross sections of the unsmooth cuticles, their common character is undee. Theoretical analysis has indicated that the larger the ratio of the amplitude of the wave to the period of the wave, the stronger the hydrophobicity, the more easily the composite interface between the liquid and the unsmooth cuticles forms, and the function of reducing soil adhesion of the unsmooth cuticles will be better.