Mechanical Measurement System and Precision Analysis for Tactile Property Evaluation of Porous Polymeric Materials

Abstract

Tactile properties are one of the most important attributes of porous polymeric materials such as textiles, comprising a subjective evaluation index for textile materials and functional clothing, primarily affecting the sensation of comfort during the wearing of a garment. A new test method was proposed, and a mechanical measurement system was developed to objectively characterize the tactile properties of porous polymeric materials by simulating the dynamic contact processes during human skin contact with the materials and in consideration of different aspects of tactile sensations. The measurement system can measure the bending, compression, friction, and thermal transfer properties in one apparatus, and is capable of associating the objective measurements with the subjective tactile sensations. The test and evaluation method, the components of the mechanical measurement system, the definition and grading method of the evaluation indices, and the neural network prediction model from objective test results to subjective sensations of tactile properties were presented. The experiments were conducted for the objective tests and correlation tests. Seven types of porous polymeric sheet materials from seven categories for the tactile properties were cut to a size of 200 mm × 200 mm and tested. Each index of tactile properties was significantly different (P < 0.05) between different sheet materials. The correlations of bending, compression, friction, and thermal transfer properties with Kawabata KES test methods were analyzed. An intra-laboratory test was conducted and an analysis of the variance was performed to determine the critical differences of within laboratory precisions of the measurement system. This mechanical measurement system provides a method and system for objective measurement and evaluation of tactile properties of porous polymeric sheet materials in industrial application.

Introduction of a New In-Situ Measurement System for the Study of Touch-Feel Relevant Surface Properties

“…These properties are combined with atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and contact angle measurements to find objective properties that characterize the haptic sensation of the test materials. The formation of synthetic objective parameters, comprising various experimental parameters, provided a good link to subjective haptic perceptions such as “leather like.” Yao et al developed a test method called the “material tactile tester” to evaluate the tactile properties of porous polymeric sheet materials, such as textile materials [ 66 ]. The proposed system can measure the thermal transfer, bending, friction and compression performances during the dynamic contact between the test material and a measurement head and is combined with a neural network to translate objective test results to subjective sensations.…”

Design of a Human Evaluator Model for the Ride Comfort of Vehicle on a Speed Bump Using a Neural Artistic Style Extraction

“…Weber et al [25] calculated muscle fat infiltration using a previously developed convolution neural network. In the material field, Yao et al used the neural network model to predict subjective tactile properties from objective test results of porous polymeric materials [26].…”

Measuring and multilevel fuzzy comprehensive predicting comfort parameters of soft materials by a new handle evaluation system

“…Messaoud et al 22 developed a specific tactile tribometer for measurement between the stimulator and human fingers, in which the test angle between the finger and surface was about 25 to measure the force and displacement. Yao et al 23 developed a mechanical measurement system, consisting of a head elevating mechanism, upper measuring head, pressure-sensing frame, friction mechanism, bottom measuring head and apparatus support frame, to simulate the dynamic contact during the bending, friction and compression processes. Lee et al 24 developed a new glove-type measurement system constructed with 20 pressure sensor sheets (one sheet size: 1.8 cm  1.7 cm) to perceive the force and converted it into input data when touching the object.…”