A Study on Tactile Friction and Wear

The tactile wear (“tezure” in Japanese) is an abrasion phenomenon of material surfaces caused by the contact of human hand over a long period of time. Though this phenomenon has been the focus of various articles, an extensive study with regard to the wear characteristics is of a profound importance. To date, we have several remarkable examples such as the statue of Pindola Bharadvaja (Buddhist) and the St. Peter statue (Christian). Followers of the respective religions who are deeply attached and rooted have been touching the statues as part of their rituals for many generations over centuries. In this study, an attempt is done to verify the friction and wear characteristics of various soft metals with contact of human finger. The results of our experiments show that the friction coefficient upon the contact of the human finger and pure copper are very high and thus proving tactile wear of soft metals can be generated easily.