Source: Textile Review

"Thermal Comfort of Textile Materials and Its Assessment" was discussed in the previous and the first article of this series. Environmental conditions and changes do affect the insulation properties of textiles. Hence variations are noticed in the thermal behaviors of these materials. Most of the times, the assessment of thermal behaviors is done in stable/Non Variable environmental conditions,which may lead us to the wrong selection of textile materials.Researches reveal that testing in Non variable environment results in overestimation of the desired properties but in actual use textile material fails to serve as per requirement and may cause disasters. The article discusses outcomes of various studies conducted in variable environmental conditions and advocates the importance of real thermal behavior assessment of textile materials. The next paper of this series will discuss about different global standards used for thermal comfort assessment and usage of thermal manikins.

Measuring or assessment of thermal properties of the clothing in static mode/state is one traditional way, which involves easier process and procedures with cost effectiveness, but its unable to give the realistic capabilities to perform as many of the important factors are not taken in the consideration while performing the test. So the latest researches have been shifted to the dynamic-state testing, which is nothing but the simulation of actual conditions of wear, activity and environmental conditions.

There are lot of efforts have been done on evaluating the thermal properties in the dynamic state or in other words variable environment with simulation of human body. It leads to more realistic results and gives a clear picture of the thermal performance of the clothing.

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Originally published in Textile Review, Dec-2010

The author is Asst.Professor with Dept. of Fashion Technology National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Gandhinagar