Climbing like Spiderman may be possible in future
Rushda:
August 29th, 2007
Ever wanted to scale vertical walls like Spiderman? Well, according to a fascinating new study, humans may be able to achieve this using a special “spider-man” suit in future. Scientists have long been studying the natural abilities in spiders and geckos which adhere to walls and climb them at ease, and now researchers believe that we may indeed be able to reproduce such technology for humans and even allow them to hang upside down in the same way.
American scientists in 2002 showed that creatures like spiders have billions of tiny hairs which allow them to stick to surfaces and even support hundreds of times their own body weight. Now, research from Polytechnic of Turin in Italy has calculated how the same kind of stickiness could be generated for humans. This is obviously difficult to achieve as we are significantly larger than a spider or gecko and so would require an even higher adhesion strength. But, as head of research Professor Pugno explains:
“If we are able to make a surface a little bit stronger, so that the size effect vanishes, we might be able to make a suit with the same adhesion as a gecko.”
He proposes that we can replicate the effects of the hairs by using tiny carbon nanotubes which measure only a few billionths of metres across and are very strong. He also says that there are three requirements for any spider-man suit to work in humans: it must be strongly adhesive, be able to attach and detach from walls easily and also clean itself (so that dirt doesn’t get in the way). Such a rare combination of properties may seem impossible but we have already seen it work in scaling creatures. As Pugno says:
“To have all these mechanisms working together is difficult, because they are in competition with one another. But geckos and spiders provide a natural demonstration that this can be done.”
Now that research has shown us exactly what kind of material needs to be used, perhaps the days are not far away when humans will be able to demonstrate the powers their favourite superhero.