title: The influence of humidity on the viscoelastic behaviour of human hair.
abstract: The possibility of curling hair is attributed to the fact that the mechanical properties of hair fibres depend on time, temperature and humidity. In this study the dependence of the viscoelastic behaviour of human hair fibres on humidity is characterised in a bending deformation. An experimental set-up was used to perform bending relaxation measurements at different humidities. The relaxation data were fitted using a so-called "stretched exponential equation". The humidity dependence was incorporated by applying time-humidity superposition. Also, the influence of humidity on the initial E-modulus was found. The influence of humidity on the behaviour of human hair fibres could be modelled by using a general characterisation of the behaviour of human hair fibres. The general characterisation is used to predict the recovery in a human hair fibre after curling. The predicted recovery appeared to agree reasonably well with experimentally determined values.
authors.affiliation: Materials Technology (MaTe), Dept. Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O.box 513, NL-5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zuidema
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Govaert
authors.forename: F P T
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Baaijens
authors.forename: P A J
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Ackermans
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Asvadi
mesh_terms: D004548:Elasticity; D006197:Hair / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D006813:Humidity; D008954:Models, Biological; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D014783:Viscosity