Source: Textile Review: April2011
Thermal Comfort of
Textile Materials and Its Assessment in dynamic environmental conditions has
been discussed in previous two articles. For the correct assessment of the
thermal properties, global testing standards are must. These standards are not
only useful for thermal assessment but also used for comparison of various
products at same platform and are accepted unambiguously. The article discusses
various popular standards used for different products in different environmental
conditions. Thermal manikins have proved to be a useful tool in
simulation of human body while testing of thermal properties in
varied environmental conditions. Some popular thermal manikins have also been
discussed in this article.
Thermal
Testing Standards
For
a comparison a reference point is needed, which can be taken as benchmark to
compare the parameters for a given product. Any property or parameter can be
evaluated against the standard provided that the standard is developed with
consensus and acceptable by all. It may be a characteristic, property or
parameter like length or with of any object or colour of any object.
Targeting
this objective, same is followed with the testing standards also. Different
material's performance can be tested or evaluated differently, but to keep all
the results on one platform and for true judgement, the procedure of testing,
specifications, equipment used, testing conditions has to be uniform and well
defined.
So,
if the test has been conducted by following the standard instructions as
described in the procedure, the results will not vary with the change of
testing location, person, equipment etc.
In
the thermal testing of textile materials various test standards are developed
and are globally valid.
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Full Article
The author is
associated with the Dept. of Fashion Technology National Institute of Fashion
Technology Gandhinagar
