Measurement of contact stress between clothing and skin using thin and flexible triaxial stress sensor

Abstract

When wearing clothes, one feels pressure, called clothing pressure, and friction. These are considered to be factors of the comfort ableness of wearing clothes. Although the contact pressure on the skin and shear stress due to friction are considered to have an important influence on the wearing comfort, no study has been conducted to simultaneously measure them while wearing clothes because of the difficulty in measuring contact stress on the interface between clothing and skin. In this study, we fabricated a thin and flexible triaxial stress sensor that can simultaneously measure contact pressure and shear stress on the skin. We bonded the sensor on the skin to measure contact pressure and shear stress with wear clothing. The sensor was attached to the subject's proximal part of the right knee joint, and the subject wore a commercially available sports legging. In the measurement experiment, the stress between the clothing and the skin was measured during the squatting motion. Shear stresses in the proximal and medial directions were detected during flexion of the knee joint. The reason is considered to be the friction caused by the sports legging being stretched in the proximal and medial directions on the skin during the knee joint flexion. When the knee was extended, the shear stress was reduced by returning of the legging to its initial position. The thin and flexible sensor fabricated was able to simultaneously detect contact pressure and shear stress between clothing and skin during the squatting motion. The sensor is expected to contribute to the quantification of the comfort ableness.