Contact biomechanics, adhesion and friction of human skin

从数字计算的最新进展和自动化在我们社会中日益增长的重要性来看，对日常生活中看似简单而被忽视的物理现象的深入理解的新需求是显而易见的。例如，想象一个机器人，它的任务是在不破坏产品的情况下取放产品，并以能够满足预期生产率的速度多次重复该操作。每一个简单的动作都需要校准，必须精确地预测其效果。这为通过数字计算创建虚拟场景提供了价值，在虚拟场景中，用户可以描绘行动的每一个可能的后果，并绘制出最佳性能的最佳路径。现在让我们把这个概念扩展到与人体相互作用的制成品的工程设计上，特别是可穿戴技术。服装、绷带和其他设备的优化设计，其功能在于与人体皮肤接触，只能通过人体生理的虚拟表示来实现。特别是，在这种情况下，我们需要虚拟地再现人类皮肤的生理机能，这只能在对其生化力学行为有基本了解的情况下完成。这是本研究的中心兴趣，主要关注粘附和摩擦现象。它将涉及皮肤物理特性的数值调查和体内实验测量，特别注意它们与粘附材料的物理和几何特性（刚度和表面粗糙度）的关系。此外，调查将考虑环境和生理条件的可变性，如湿度（汗水）和温度的水平。这些已被证明对上述框架有影响，因为例如，出汗时皮肤通常更粘。该模型最终将有助于开发先进的软件，用于改进可穿戴技术的设计和逼真的生物实体虚拟表示（计算机图形学）。

From the recent advances in digital computing and the growing importance of automation in our society, theemerging need for in-depth understanding of physical phenomena that are apparently simple and overlooked ineveryday life is evident. Think, for example, of a robot which task is to pick-and-place a product withoutbreaking it and repeat the operation multiple times at a pace that can satisfy the expected production rate. Eachsimple movement needs to be calibrated and one must predict the effect of it with fine detail. This gives meritto the creation of a virtual scenario via digital computing in which the user can depict every possibleconsequence of action and chart the optimal path to the best performance. Now let us extend this concept to theengineering design of manufactured goods that interact with the human body and, in particular, to the case ofwearable technology. Optimal design of clothes, bandages and other devices, which functionality lies in contactwith human skin, can only be achieved from virtual representation of the physiology of the human body. Inparticular, for this case, one needs to virtually reproduce the physiology of human skin, which can only be donewith previous fundamental understanding of its bio-chemo-mechanical behavior. This is the central interest ofthe proposed research, which focuses on the phenomena of adhesion and friction. It will involve numericalinvestigations and in-vivo experimental measurement of the physical properties of skin with particular attentionto the relation of them with the physical and geometrical properties of the adhering material (stiffness andsurface roughness). Moreover, the investigation will consider the variability of environmental andphysiological conditions such as the level of moisture (sweat) and temperature. These have proven to beinfluential in the aforementioned framework since for example skin is commonly stickier when sweating. Themodel will finally contribute to the development of advanced software for the improved design of wearabletechnology and for realistic virtual representations of living entities (computer graphics).