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都有深远的影响。巨大的学术和商业努力致力于优化皮肤的健康和外观。皮肤的屏障功能已经得到了广泛的研究，但对其提供足够的摩擦力以使我们能够抓握和操纵物体的作用研究较少。过多的摩擦会产生不良的皮肤状况，如在许多情况下，如戴呼吸面罩或皮肤与潮湿的表面接触时，皮肤会起皱和刺激。反之，老年人的皮肤摩擦力可能会减少，使老年人在握持和操纵物体时遇到的困难更加严重。许多潜在的摩擦力决定因素已经被研究过，包括外加载荷、皮肤变形、皮肤机械性能和表面纹理和材料，但亚表面行为和皮肤应变还没有得到严格的研究。这些参数中的大多数都是静态研究的，虽然人们知道当接触是动态的时，它们会发生变化，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，以允许在表面下观察皮肤在滑动到物体时的行为，以及什么因素对此影响最大，例如皮肤水分，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，因为这对摩擦力有重大影响，但目前还没有技术来表征移动接触的这种影响。这项工作的目标最初将集中在开发观察表面和亚表面行为所需的设备和技术上。然后，这些将与皮肤测试仪器相结合，使摩擦等测量与地下图像并行进行。然后，来自测试的信息和技术本身将被应用于三个实际案例研究，以确保工作具有真实的世界影响。第一个项目将涉及与飞利浦合作研究睡眠呼吸暂停患者使用的口罩。测试数据将有助于改进面部皮肤与面膜接触的计算机模型。第二项研究将与联合利华一起进行，重点是表征护肤霜和洁面奶的效果。最终的案例研究将是在谢菲尔德大学皮肤科医生进行的临床研究中使用新的非侵入性成像技术，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.