Clothing design parameters that affect estimation of clothing insulation change due to posture and motion

• Clothing insulation is one of the basic parameters that affects human heat exchange with the environment. There are available standard methods to measure individual clothing items and combinations’ insulation (EN 15831), and standards that present databases and allow summing individual items insulation (ISO 9920). The latter does not account for many effects that occur when dressing the clothing ensemble, e.g. tucking shirt into pants or not, compression of layers, clothing design features. An aim of this study was to study and evaluate textile and clothing design parameters that may affect clothing combinations’ insulation while using data from available clothing studies. Such an overview would support preparations for improving the summation method, and motion and wind corrections. This would allow more accurate risk assessment and selection of appropriate protective, functional clothing for work tasks in any environments, thus, diminishing the thermal stress. The methods included a revision of available clothing databases where more or less detailed data on clothing items and combination parameters was available. According to earlier results, 67 % of summation results were over 10 % different and 24 % were 20 % or more different from ensemble measurement results. A variety of parameters that were of interest for the summation method or wind and motion effect correction were defined, and if possible, measured, e.g. number of layers, their thickness etc. Draping, stiffness of layers and compressibility could be of interest but were not covered in this preliminary work. The present evaluation did show that in addition to basic factors defined in ISO 9920 for correcting for wind and motion – total clothing insulation, air velocity and walking speed, also posture, number of layers, their thickness (possible relation to draping and stiffness of layers) and looseness of lower body layers around hips had significant influence on predictions. About 20 % of all total resultant clothing insulation predictions, while considering the listed parameters still exceeded 10 % difference with measured values compared to 43 % of corresponding ISO 9920 corrections. More detailed information on clothing components design and use may allow improved insulation estimations. A calculation error of less than 10 % could be acceptable, while less than 5 % would be preferable for physiological modelling purposes.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik -- Textil-, gummi- och polymermaterial (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering -- Textile, Rubber and Polymeric Materials (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

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