Experimental Investigation of Effect of Bending Deformation of Soft Material Fingertip on Resistible Force in Grasping

Abstract

In this study, we experimentally investigated the effect of bending deformation of soft material fingertips on the resistible force. The resistible force is defined as the maximum tangential force at which the fingertip can maintain contact when applying and increasing tangential force. In our previous study, harder fingertips in which small bending deformation occurs produce larger resistible forces. When a tangential force was applied, large bending deformation occurred in the soft fingertip. It is assumed that bending deformation affected the deformation of the contact area over the contact area. In order to corroborate the hypothesis, we experimentally investigated the effect of bending deformation on the resistible force using various fingertip shapes.