Meeting Abstract
The remoras (Family Echeneidae) create rapid, robust, and reliable adhesion to a variety of marine hosts both natural and artificial. Several key systems which make up the remoras’ suction pad include spinules, a fleshy lip, mucus, and articulating lamellae work in concert to overcome the difficult attachment conditions that are inherent in a submerged marine environment such as fluid drag, varying host surface topology, surface contamination, and attachment site deformation to name a few. Here structural characterization is combined with multi-scale mechanical modeling to evaluate the performance of the remoras’ suction pad. Results suggest operating limits for the pad which are compared to behavioral observations. Understanding the roles of structure and material properties through mechanical models is a critical step toward translating the remarkable attachment ensemble of remoras into useful, bio-inspired applications.
