Effect of the Boundary Conditions Applied to the Liquid Bridge on the Liquid Transfer between Two Solid Surfaces

The trend towards miniaturization requires to handle even smaller micro-components: they must be picked, placed with high accuracy, and then released. This highly challenging process should take into account two aspects: the yield of successful placements and the minimized risk of damaging the manipulated micrometer-sized objects due to contact forces. Despite the advantages of the latest gripping technologies, including low complexity, high accuracy, and high reliability, the component is subjected to high contact forces that could damage it. As a consequence, there is a need of developing new and innovative ways to manipulate micro-sized components with respect to the requirements mentioned above.

Gripping based on capillary bridges is a promising technique to handle components at the micrometric scale. This technique offers many advantages: flexibility and reliability, self-centering effect, the capability of grasping small and delicate components in a wide range of shapes and materials thanks to the “bumper” effect of the mediated liquid bridge. Nevertheless, the liquid residue on the component after breaking up the bridge is undesirable. As a consequence, there is a need to design a capillary gripping system that can retain all the liquid after the breakup of the bridge. Understanding the formation, the stretching, and the liquid distribution after the breakup of the liquid bridge is mandatory.

In this thesis and in the first place, we studied the rupture of a liquid bridge confined between different geometries of the gripper and the substrate: plane/plane, cone/plane, and cavity/plane. We developed, based on the resolution of the Young-Laplace equation, an operational quasi-static criterion to predict the rupture gap of the bridge. We also investigated the effect of the geometry on the liquid distribution after the breakup. Optimal geometries are found to retain up to 90% of the liquid after the breakup of the bridge.

In the second place, we investigated the secretion dispensing in green dock beetles Gastrophysa viridula. Their ability to walk upside-down on any kind of surfaces rely on mediated secretion between their hairy pad and the surface they walk on. We studied the mechanism of the secretion dispensing from the source where it is produced to the contact zone.

Experimental setups have been designed, with advancing 3D printing and micro-fabrication techniques. Models have been developed, discussed, and compared to experimental data.