Material Design Based on the Physical Model of Tactile Sensation

Abstract

The haptic technologies corresponding to metrology and display of tactile sensations are in progress. It requires fundamental information of the physical mechanisms of tactile sensations. Tactile sensation is usually expressed as adjectives or onomatopoeias, but the physical phenomena during touch cannot be presumed by such sensuous words. We are trying to examine what kind of physical phenomena and microscopic interactions between human skin and materials cause the objective tactile sensations. In this paper, we describe some fundamental examples of the physical models that represent tactile sensations for fabrics and skin care products, and then discuss about application possibility of the models for material design of tactile sensation.