Hohenstein starts quantitatively determining wear comfort

26 Mar '13

5 min read

Large amounts of sweat due to very high ambient temperatures and/or a high level of physical activity have to be effectively absorbed by the fabric and transported away from the body as quickly as possible. The clothing should also dry quickly to prevent the wearer from getting cold during rest phases. The textile should also feature optimum skin sensorial properties for all conceivable wearing situations in order to obtain a good wear comfort vote.

At the point of sale the wear comfort vote can, for example, be clearly advertised by marking the product with the Hohenstein Quality Label. As this label also allows other functional properties such as UV protection factor, antimicrobial effect or dirt-repellent and odour-inhibiting finishes to be tested and certified, customers receive a comprehensive statement about the quality characteristics of an item at a glance.

From the idea to a successful product

Apart from the wear comfort vote for product marketing, the clothing physiology laboratory tests also provide targeted support for manufacturers with the development of textiles, for example when it comes to ideally adapting the materials to different climate conditions or specific areas of use such as athletic activities.

During the new development of clothing, exploratory measurements can initially be carried out with a large amount of textile samples to determine particularly important indicators for the end product, allowing unsuitable textiles to be excluded from the outset. Sweat wicking properties for sports textiles would be an example for such an indicator. This is followed by the verification of wear comfort on a few material samples of the new product. In another step the ready manufactured garments can be examined with the help of the thermal manikin ‘Charlie’, which can be used to simulate body movements and different skin temperatures for each area of the body.

Depending on the intended use of the garments, further laboratory tests on human test subjects can be practical. They simulate the specific wearing situation and correlate the measurement results from the fabric tests with those of the wear trials. To allow scientific reproduction of the ambient conditions for certain areas of use of the clothing, the examinations with the thermal manikin as well as the wear trials with the human test subjects take place in a climatic chamber where factors such as temperature, air movement and humidity can be regulated individually.

Hohenstein Institute

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