Experiments on peeling adhesive tapes from human forearms.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Peeling of adhesive tape from hu-man skin can cause pain and trauma. The effects of the peel angle, peel rate, dwell time, subject, and order of testing were examined.

METHODS

Adhesive tape was peeled from the volar forearms of four human subjects. The tape was 25.4-mm-wide Durapore by 3M. The rates ranged from 100 to 10,000 mm/min, the peel angle from 90 degrees to 180 degrees, and the dwell time from one to 15 min. The tensile testing machines'recorded the peel force and the displacement of the end of the tape.

RESULTS

A range of maximum and average peel force values was observed. The peel force tended to be minimum for a peel angle around 150 degrees in most cases. As the peel rate was increased, the peel force generally tended to increases lightly, but the relationship was erratic. As the dwell time increased, the peel force increased and then settled down. Of the subjects tested, the skin of the oldest subject experienced the most displacement and highest peel forces(the maximum force over all tests was 3.6 N). The peel force tended to increase with repeated peeling from the same skin site. Compared with peeling from a rigid substrate such as steel, the peel force from skin was lower.

CONCLUSION

The results improve understanding of the factors affecting the peel force, which has been correlated previously with trauma caused by peeling adhesive tape from skin.