Development of novel T-shirt designs for ventilation

Abstract

In today' world, clothing is not only a commodity to meet our basic needs or an object for aesthetic appreciation, but also a portable environment to help us face different external conditions everyday. In order to fulfill such a purpose, a true functional garment is the one that can protect our body from acute changes of external conditions. In order to strike a balance between work and leisure, sports have become a part of our lifestyle. However, one may not be aware that sports and exercise can sometime bring about certain degree of impairment to our health. For instance, when doing exercise, our body will generate heat, which will eventually result in sweating. If the heat and sweat cannot be efficiently transmitted through our clothing and released to the external environment, the excessive heat not only causes heat stress and affects our performance, in extreme case, it would even lead to tragic death (Sawka and Young, 2000). Since clothing can be a potential obstacle to the heat and moisture transfer (Haghi, 2004; Levine et al 1998; Nielsen et al 1989; Parsons 1993), designers of functional clothing and active sportswear should not only take into consideration the aesthetic requirements, but also try to optimize the thermal comfort of the wearer. To enhance thermal comfort, ventilation features have been widely applied to clothing systems. Nevertheless, the location and design of the ventilation features have been largely based on trial and error. In this study, the location and designs of ventilation openings in T-shirts are experimentally investigated using the sweating fabric manikin - Walter. Clothing thermal insulation and moisture vapour resistance of the T-shirts were measured when the manikin simulated walking motion and was at standing posture. The results showed that, the locations and designs of the ventilation panels affected the total thermal insulation and moisture vapour resistance; among the various designs tested, the construction that kept the fabric layer away from the skin surface and openings applied at two vertical side of the T-shirt along the side seams were found to be the most effective in releasing heat and moisture from the body.