A NEW RESEARCH ON HUMAN SKIN-LUBRICATION PROBLEMS

Abstract

Skin-tribology is a new scientific domain where the living human skin, lubricated by sweat, cooperates duringthe motion with the non-living surface of clothing material. Such cooperation has an important influence onthe human limbs’ functioning and, consequently, on the bio-frictions and wear effects connected with humanhealth and efficiency. This paper presents new research tendencies and their applications in the contemporaryskin-tribology domain. At first, we described and documented skin-tribology connections between variousscientific domains. In a particular case, some new phenomena are illustrated occurring during the human skinbody lubrication by sweat. For example, sweat properties are considered during the flow inside a thin gapbetween tightly fitting clothing material surfaces and the skin of the human body.This paper presents the meaning and influence of many components in human sweat on dynamic sweatviscosity, health and efficiency.The main results focus on the influence of the non-Newtonian sweat features on the dynamic sweat viscosityvariations across the film thickness in the thin sweat layer and on the load carrying capacity of human limbsand the human Basal Metabolic Rate with Metabolic Age.