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Understanding the Pull-off Force of the Human Fingerpad
To understand the adhesive force that occurs when a finger pulls off of a smooth surface, we built an apparatus to measure the fingerpad’s moisture, normal force, and real contact area over time during interactions with a glass plate. We recorded a total of 450 trials (45 interactions by each of ten human subjects), capturing a wide range of values across the aforementioned variables. The experimental results showed that the pull-off force increases with larger finger contact area and faster detachment rate. Additionally, moisture generally increases the contact area of the finger, but too much moisture can restrict the increase in the pull-off force.
@misc{Nam19-WHCWIP-Pulloff, title = {Understanding the Pull-off Force of the Human Fingerpad}, abstract = {To understand the adhesive force that occurs when a finger pulls off of a smooth surface, we built an apparatus to measure the fingerpad’s moisture, normal force, and real contact area over time during interactions with a glass plate. We recorded a total of 450 trials (45 interactions by each of ten human subjects), capturing a wide range of values across the aforementioned variables. The experimental results showed that the pull-off force increases with larger finger contact area and faster detachment rate. Additionally, moisture generally increases the contact area of the finger, but too much moisture can restrict the increase in the pull-off force.}, howpublished = {Work-in-progress paper (2 pages) presented at the IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC)}, address = {Tokyo, Japan}, month = jul, year = {2019}, slug = {nam19-whcwip-pulloff}, author = {Nam, Saekwang and Kuchenbecker, Katherine J.}, month_numeric = {7} }