Improving garment thermal insulation property by combining two non-contact measuring tools

Abstract

To investigate the effect of air gaps on the heat transfer performance of clothing, the method using the combination of two non-contact measuring tools (infrared thermal camera and 3D body scanner) has been developed considering the quantification of the air gap thickness and clothing surface temperature of different body parts without contacting clothing surface directly. The results show that the air gaps over middle and lower back of upper body have the largest thickness in all body parts, while the front and back shoulders have the smallest air gap thickness. The one-way analysis of variance shows that air gap thickness under shoulder segments has no significant difference in terms of size. Furthermore, clothing surface temperatures of shoulder and chest decrease gradually along with air gap thickness; clothing surface temperatures of front abdomen, front waist, pelvis and hip segments decrease initially but begin to increase when the air gap is above 1.5cm; clothing surface temperatures of middle back and back waist continually increase with the air gap thickness. Based on the comprehensive analyzation of the distributed features of air gap thickness and clothing surface temperature of different body parts, a revised clothing pattern with lower regional temperature and higher thermal insulation is put forward.