Abstract
Mussels living in the ocean adhere to shore reef and each other with byssus formed by insolubilization of adhesive proteins, whose application to the new bio-adhesion material has been expected. Their adhesive strength has not been accurately measured because peel test method is not established since the contact areas between a plaque and the substrate are less than 1 mm2. Present paper attempts to measure adhesive strength of the plaques using original simple peel test method and investigates the influence of environmental change on the adhesive strength and the change of the adhesive strength in the lapse of time. The results show that the adhesive strength of the plaques decrease with the change in the environment by transferring mussels from the beach to an experimental environment and the adhesive strength changes along with the elapsed time after the plaques are secreted.
