High-speed multi-channel 3-D Optical Coherence Tomography studies of the biomechanics of skin friction.

皮肤的健康对我们的身心健康有着深远的影响。大量的学术和商业努力致力于优化皮肤的健康和外观。皮肤的屏障功能已被广泛研究，但研究较少的是它在提供足够的摩擦以使我们能够抓住和操纵物体方面的作用。在许多情况下，如戴着呼吸面罩或皮肤与潮湿的表面接触，过度摩擦会产生不良的皮肤状况，如擦伤和刺激。相反，皮肤摩擦的减少可能发生在老年人身上，并使老年人在抓握和操纵物体时遇到的困难复杂化。已经研究了许多潜在的摩擦决定因素，包括施加的载荷、蒙皮变形、蒙皮机械性能和表面纹理和材料，但对亚表面行为和蒙皮应变尚未进行严格的研究。大多数这些参数都是静态研究的，虽然已知它们会在动态接触时发生变化，但没有定量数据可用于皮肤的计算机模型。这项工作的目的是开发新的成像技术，以允许对皮肤在物体上滑动时的行为进行地下观察，以及影响最大的因素，例如皮肤湿度、施加的载荷、滑动速度等。皮肤和物体之间的接触面积也将比以前更详细地研究，因为这对摩擦有主要影响，而且目前还没有技术可以在移动接触中表征这一点。这项工作的目标最初将集中于开发观测地表和地下行为所需的设备和技术。然后，这些将与皮肤测试设备相结合，以允许与地下图像并行进行摩擦等测量。然后，测试所得的信息和技术本身将应用于三个实际案例研究，以确保对工作产生实际影响。第一项是与飞利浦合作，研究睡眠呼吸暂停患者使用的面膜。测试数据将有助于改进面部皮肤与口罩接触的计算机模型。第二项研究将与联合利华合作进行，重点是描述护肤霜和洗面奶的效果。最后一个案例研究将是在临床研究中使用新的非侵入性成像技术，由谢菲尔德大学的皮肤科医生进行，以取代目前用于研究皮肤损伤的胶带剥离方法。

The health of the skin has profound effects on both our physical and psychological well-being. Enormous academic and commercial effort is devoted to optimising the health and appearance of skin. The barrier function of skin has been widely studied, but less well studied is its role in providing enough friction to allow us to grip and manipulate objects. Excessive friction can produce undesirable skin conditions such as chaffing and irritation in many scenarios such as wearing a respiration face mask or the skin being in contact with a damp surface. Conversely reduction of skin friction can occur in old age and compound the difficulties experienced by the older population when gripping and manipulating objects.Many potential determinants of friction have been studied, including applied load, skin deformation, skin mechanical properties and surface textures and materials, but the sub-surface behaviour and skin strain has not been investigated as rigorously. Most of these parameters have been investigated statically and although it is known that they will change when the contact is dynamic no quantitative data is available for using in computer models of skin.The aim in this work will be to develop new imaging techniques to allow sub-surface observation of how skin behaves when it is sliding against an object and what influences this the most, for example, skin moisture, applied load, sliding speed etc. The contact area between skin and object will also studied in greater detail than before as this has a major effect on friction and as yet no techniques exist for characterising this in a moving contact.The objectives of the work will initially focus on developing the equipment and techniques needed to observe the surface and sub-surface behaviour. These will then be combined with skin testing apparatus to allow the measurements of friction etc. to be taken in parallel with the sub-surface images.The information from the tests and the techniques themselves will then be applied in three practical case studies to ensure real world impact for the work. The first will involve working with Philips on studying facial masks used by sleep apnea sufferers. Test data will help improve computer models of the contact between facial skin and a mask. The second will be carried out with Unilever and focus on characterising the effects of skin creams and cleansers. The final case study will be on using the new non-invasive imaging technique in clinical studies carried out by dermatologists at The University of Sheffield to replace tape-stripping methods currently used to study skin damage.