Experimental Tribology of Human Skin
The interaction behavior of the human skin is of relevance for the functional performance of a wide range of products and, as a result, the topic is widely studied in both industry and academia. However, the key underlying mechanisms determining the inter
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Abstract The interaction behavior of the human skin is of relevance for the functional performance of a wide range of products and, as a result, the topic is widely studied in both industry and academia. However, the key underlying mechanisms determining the interaction behavior of skin are at present not well understood. Skin is a living material and thus will respond and may adapt to mechanical interaction, for instance by producing sweat, releasing biomarkers and even developing a blister or a wound. In addition, the properties of skin strongly depend on personal traits and characteristics. This makes predictive modelling of the interaction behaviour of skin challenging, and therefore there is a continued need for experimental investigations. In literature a large range of experimentally obtained friction values have been reported. These have been measured using a wide variety of tribometers. When commencing tribological testing it is essential to ensure that the investigations are performed using the appropriate tribo-system, meaning that contact conditions such as pressures, sliding velocities and environmental conditions are representative for the final application, as any of these factors will have a significant effect on the obtained tribological result. Additionally, many studies use the volar forearm as measurement site; whilst this area provides ease of measurement, it may not always be highly representative of the actual skin site of interest. Because of the complex nature of skin interactions, much of the underlying fundamental physical mechanisms remain to be discovered. Focused in-depth experimental investigations will be key to achieving a better understanding in skin tribology.
M. A. Masen () Tribology Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] N. Veijgen · M. Klaassen Laboratory for Surface Technology and Tribology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 G. Limbert (ed.), Skin Biophysics, Studies in Mechanobiology, Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13279-8_10
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1 Introduction Our skin is the outermost layer of the human body and is in continuous interaction with the outside world. This interaction comes in the form of a large range of cues, of which the field of tribology covers those aspects related to contact mechanics. This includes normal and shear forces and the resulting pressures as well as shear stresses and friction. Tribology is defined as the science and engine?ering of interacting surfaces in relative motion, and in that respect ‘skin tribology’ can be loosely defined as the study of interacting surfaces in which one of the interacting surfaces is the human skin or, alternatively, a substitute for human skin. The latter is pertinent when investigating damage mechanisms. The tribological behavior of skin is important for a wide variety of applications, ranging from touch perception and haptics of produ
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