Fabric‐skin friction property measurement system

Purpose Understanding the friction property between fabric and skin is an important issue in both product design and comfort evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to present a new type of tester to evaluate the friction between skin and clothing. Design/methodology/approach The proposed fabric‐skin friction tester consists of test host, friction equipment, control box, and computer processing system. The suitable testing conditions (tension, friction velocity, and sample width) are recommended by comparing the parameters and actual test circumstance. Findings As the stress history characteristic of skin, the friction test should be repeated since the second time for each fabric and skin friction pair. The fluctuation of single friction curve and dispersion degree of several friction curves in repeated trials are both smallest under the recommended test conditions (200 cN tension, 500 mm/min friction velocity and 10 cm wide sample) for woven fabric. Originality/value The proposed fabric‐skin friction tester is adapted to measure the dynamical friction properties between human skin and clothing. This is original in comparison to the conventional research method usually found in the literature.