Strider and Ant Colony
Georgia published her paper entitled Water-Repellency of Hierarchical-Structured Legs of Water-Walking Striders and Fire Ants in Surface Innovations that summarizes her M.S. program. The following is the abstract of her publication:
“Some insects have the ability to walk on water surface due to hierarchical leg structure and wax coating. In this study, resistance forces of water strider and fire ant legs to submersion in water, under their various orientations, were quantified using a high-sensitivity microbalance. Legs oriented parallel to water surface could support up to ten times as much force before immersion, compared to legs in a perpendicular orientation. Water pressure affected the setae structure differently at parallel and perpendicular approaches, and complete wetting was more difficult in the structure observed during parallel immersion. The wax coating on water strider legs was found to decrease adhesion force with little effect on immersion force. Overall, wax-coated strider legs, having conical setae with nanogrooves to facilitate removal of water, that are oriented parallel to the water surface, coated with wax, and have coned setae with nanogrooves to facilitate removal of water, are natural models for legs of a biomimetic aquatic robot when oriented parallel to the water surface.”
