A novel approach to measuring the frictional behaviour of human skin in vivo
Abstract Friction involving human skin plays a key role in human life. The availability of a portable tribometer improves the accessibility to large number of both subjects and anatomical sites. This is the first mobile device suitable to measure skin friction with a controlled and variable normal load (range 0.5–2 N) and velocity (range 1–10 mm/s) of a material of choice making a sliding rotational movement over the skin. The results of a pilot study, using stainless steel samples on the ventral forearm compare to results in the literature. The new device can be used for more extensive research to found these results and determine the effects of normal load or sliding velocity on the skin's frictional behaviour.