Use of an artificial finger to measure contact temperature on various extremely cold metallic surfaces

Abstract

Manual work is often required under various cold conditions, which reduce finger temperature and carry a risk of finger cold injury while touching very cold metallic surfaces. This paper describes the development of an electrically heated, artificial finger that can simulate the cooling behaviour of the human finger. To obtain complementary data on safety criterion for extreme conditions, it was utilized to measure contact temperature when extremely cold metals were touched. The measurements were carried out in two climatic chambers at various temperatures (−40, −30, −20 and −10°C) on different cold metallic surfaces (aluminium and steel). Experimental results confirmed that the instrument is capable of simulating the cooling behaviour of human fingers touching the cold metals. The results with the artificial finger indicate that a cold injury may take place if a human finger touches cold aluminium at <−20°C for less than 5 s. In addition, the artificial finger model provides useful data to determine contact duration when touching extremely cold metallic surfaces for protecting against cold injury.