Abstract

The friction property of leather is very important for the objective measurement of leather’s mechanical performance and subjective evaluation of leather handle. However, due to the visco-elastic and inhomo geneous property of leather and the change of physical properties of leather fibre with temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure, the measurement and analysis of leather frictional forces are a difficult subject to study. As a preliminary and explorative research work, this paper conducts a literature review on friction theories. The frictional forces of leather samples under a constant load and a constant speed are investigated and measured by a computer system. After initial analysis, pattern recognition techniques using four types of clustering methods are used for the analysis of the relationship between leather surface quality and the measured results. Finally, further research work is suggested.