The frog uses wet adhesion and a soft tongue in order to capture its prey. This swift capture, unmatched by known synthetic mechanisms, benefits from being understood in its totality. The adhesion is due to a frog’s shear thinning saliva, which can be treated as a high viscosity Newtonian fluid under low shear stress and a low viscosity Newtonian fluid under high shear stress. With shear forces playing a large role, it follows that the texture of the surface could impact the adhesive strength of the tongue. An experiment was designed using dynamic similarity to determine the impact surface roughness has on the adhesive properties of the frog tongue. The experiments did not reveal any significant impact of surface roughness on the adhesive strength of the bond between tongue and prey.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Cano, Ana

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-081321-021257
• 27221

Keyword

• surface roughness
• frog
• non-Newtonian
• saliva
• viscous adhesion

Advisor

• Gnanaskandan, Aswin
• Stroe, Izabela RC
• Sabuncu, Ahmet Can

Year

• 2021

Sponsor

• N/A

Date created

• 2021-08-13

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Mechanical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2021-12-12