Fingertip skin models for analysis of the haptic perception of textiles

Izabela Luiza Ciesielska-Wrobel, Lieva Van Langenhove, Katarzyna Grabowska

Department of Chemistry, Textiles and Innovative Processes, Hautes études d’Ingénieur, Lille, France.
Department of Textiles, Ghent University, Zwijnaarde, Belgium Department of Chemistry, Textiles and Innovative Processes, Hautes études d’Ingénieur, Lille, France.
Institute of Architecture of Textiles, Lodz University of Technology, Lodz, Poland.

DOI: 10.4236/jbise.2014.71001                

Abstract

This paper presents finite element models of the fingertip skin which have been created to simulate the contact of textile objects with the skin to gain a better understanding of the perception of textiles through the skin, the so-called hand of textiles. Many objective and subjective techniques have already been developed for analysing the hand of textiles; however, none of them provide exact overall information concerning the sensation of textiles through the skin. As the human skin is a complex heterogeneous hyperelastic body composed of many particles, some simplifications had to be made at the early stage of building the models; however, their utilitarian value was maintained. The models relate only to mechanical loading of the skin. They predict a low deformation of the fingertip skin under the pressure of virtual heterogeneous material: acrylic, coarse wool, and steel.

Keywords

Fingertip Skin; Sensation of Textiles through the Skin; Skin Model; Finite Element Model; Abaqus CEA 6.10-2.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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