Hey just as a side note, if you read my previous post then you would know I'm incorporating a dock system into my design. Having a dock made from steel made me nervous about the traction conditions when it would be wet. A lot of creatures in the world rely on very tiny microscopic hairs on their feet to climb smooth objects or stick to any surface like flies or geckos. This got me thinking, since traction plays a large role when it comes to wet docks, maybe I could incorporate the same idea.
From the Georgia Tech Research News:
Scientists have long been interested in the ability of gecko lizards to scurry up walls and cling to ceilings by their toes. The creatures owe this amazing ability to microscopic branched elastic hairs in their toes that take advantage of atomic-scale attractive forces to grip surfaces and support surprisingly heavy loads. Several research groups have attempted to mimic those hairs with structures made of polymers or carbon nanotubes.
At a very rudimentary level of this concept, I was thinking of incorporating steel wool into the decking to give the steel dock some traction. Or maybe add some sort of pattern stamping to mimic the idea. Might be rough on the knees though, but I was playing with the idea nonetheless. Steel wool is a product that can be completely 100% recycled.
Also, here's a cool phenomenon that happens when you swing around a fiery ball of steel wool on a string. Makes for some awesome images.
Scott
Unfortunately the gecko condition has been speculated upon by designers for quite a while now and has yet to produce something at an architectural scale of note. That said, you are looking at probably the most appropriate scale of application with the traction issues, but if you are genuinely interested in that, I would suggest looking to the ways we make metal walkways decent for traction in Canada already as a start.
ReplyDeleteThe steel wool is probably not going to be a significant portion of your design if at all as it neither suits the scale of SSEF nor does it prove to be terribly useful for your application... mind you, if you had two steel wool scouring pads, a bottle of soap, 1/2 cup of gasoline, and a magnifying glass you could get pretty cool effects with your design...
*Noted
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