Surface topography and contact mechanics of dry and wet human skin

• Alexander E. Kovalev,
• Kirstin Dening,
• Bo N. J. Persson and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1341–1348, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.147

• topography of the human wrist skin is studied by using optical and atomic force microscopy (AFM) methods. By using these techniques the surface roughness power spectrum is obtained. The Persson contact mechanics theory is used to calculate the contact area for different magnifications, for the dry and wet

• defined only when a combination of both AFM and optical methods is used for power spectrum calculation. Keywords: contact mechanics; interface fluid; roughness power spectrum; skin tribology; Introduction The tribology of human skin is of great importance in sports, medicine, and cosmetics [1][2]. It is

• and AFM data we have obtained the surface roughness power spectrum over all relevant length scales. This enabled us to perform a more accurate theoretical contact mechanics study of the frictional properties of skin, which we will report on in this paper. Experimental The topography of human wrist