ABSTRACT In the present work, friction coefficient and electrostatic charge generated from the friction of hair and head scarf of different textiles materials were measured. Test specimens of head scarf of common textile fibres such as cotton, nylon and polyester were tested by sliding under different loads against African and Asian hair. Ultra surface DC Voltmeter was used to measure the electrostatic charge of the tested textile composites. The results showed that Asian hair displayed relatively higher friction coefficient than African hair when sliding against polyester head scarf, where friction coefficient decreased with increasing the applied load. Asian hair generated higher voltage than African hair and voltage significantly increased with increasing the applied load. Besides, friction coefficient generated from the sliding of the cotton head scarf against hair displayed higher values than that showed by polyester head scarf. The nylon head scarf when sliding against hair showed relatively lower friction coefficient than that observed for polyester and cotton scarf. Asian hair displayed higher friction values than African hair. Electric static charge measured in voltage represented relatively lower values. This behaviour may be attributed to the ranking of the rubbing materials in the triboelectric series where the gap between human hair and nylon is smaller than the gap between hair and cotton as well as hair and polyester. Asian hair represented higher friction than African hair for polyester head scarf. Generally, at higher loads, the difference in friction values was insignificant. African hair displayed relatively higher voltage. Nylon displayed relatively higher friction coefficient than polyester when slid against human hair, while cotton proposed the highest friction coefficient especially at lower loads. The nylon head scarf showed slight decrease in friction coefficient compared to scarf. The decrease might be from the difference in the weave form although the both two textiles are made of nylon. The weaves form has significant effect on friction coefficient and voltage generated.
Mohamed et al. (Sun,) studied this question.