A Review on Synthetic Skin: Materials Investigation, Experimentation and Simulation

Abstract

The skin, which acts as a protector of the body from potentially harmful external environment is a multi-layered tissue that exhibits complex mechanical behaviour. The aim of this paper is to review available studies of human skin using experimental and numerical methods in determining the mechanical properties of skin. Mechanical properties of skin are vital to the certain industries such as surgical, cosmetics, forensic science and etc., where skin study currently leads to the development of an ultimate skin-like substitute that contains anatomy and physiology characteristics. A number of research papers and journals related to skin were revised and currently findings show that available information in regard to skin biomechanical properties is limited and the actual skin behavior is not comprehensively examined. Nevertheless, further in-depth research is required to develop appropriate techniques in estimating the skin properties which are valuable to the development of biomechanics study of skin.