Session: 06-01 Micro/Nano Systems for Human Machine Interaction-Part 1

Paper Number: 110843

110843 - Effect of Temperature on Skin-Textile Friction 

Friction force modulation is the most promising technique in surface haptics to achieve virtual texture rendering, virtual shape rendering, and virtual interactions. While current technologies including electroadhesion and ultrasonic have successfully demonstrated surface haptics on rigid surfaces like metal oxides and glasses, studies on achieving surface haptics on flexible surfaces are still lacking. More importantly, there are limited methods to reduce friction between fingertips and soft surfaces due to the complicated mechanics and interfacial behaviour of the skin. In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time a method to reduce finger friction force on textiles by locally modulating the surface temperature. In a specific synthetic textile material-Alcantara, we showed a finger friction force reduction of 30% over a local surface temperature increase of 42℃ through resistive heating. Moreover, with the same heating method, different trends of friction force variation with temperature are observed with different flexible substrates like cotton, leather, and polyester. The change of friction force is closely related to substrate material, temperature difference, and applied normal load. The mechanism of temperature induced friction modulation on textile surfaces might be related to textile materials, bio-mechanics of skin, and lubrication effects. This paper provides a new method for future tactile rendering on a variety of flexible surfaces, including smart fabrics, automotive interiors, and intelligent furniture.

Presenting Author: Zhirui Liu Department of Mechanical Engineering and Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Presenting Author Biography: Liu Zhirui received his bachelor's degree in transportation engineering from Chang'an University and is currently studying in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University as a Master of Science student.