Abstract:

To investigate the effect of air gaps located between human skin and fabric on the heat and moisture transfer properties of fabric system, the sweating hot plate was used to test the thermal and evaporative insulation of fabric. The research used a spacer with different thickness to simulate different air gaps, in such way, the heat and moisture transfer through human skin-air gaps-fabric was quantificational tested. The experimental results show that the thermal and evaporative insulation of fabric system increase with the air gaps firstly, and then go down when the air gaps reaches 12mm, after that they go up again. Although the fabric thickness influence the thermal and evaporative insulation of fabric system, the experiment proves that the influence is more significant for air gaps under clothing. Taking into account of the fit and warm properties of clothing, the allowance of chest for cold protective clothing is suggested to be 6-8 cm.