CLOTHING COMFORT

Definition:

v Comfort is a complex and nebulous subject that is very difficult to define.

v Comfort is involves thermal and non thermal properties, it is related to wear situations, such as working, critical conditions.

v Freedom from pain and discomfort as a neutral state,

Why clothing comfort is necessary?

          Because clothing is directly in contact with human body, it interacts with the body continuously and dynamically during wear. This stimulates mechanical, thermal and visual sensations.

Types of Comfort:

Ø  Thermo physiological comfort: It involves transport of heat and moisture through a fabric.

Ø  Sensorial Comfort: It involves neural sensations when textile comes into contact with skin.

Ø  Body movement Comfort: Ability of a textile to allow freedom of movement reduces burden and body shaping as required.

Ø  Aesthetic Comfort: It involves subjective perception of clothing to the eye, hand, ear and nose which contributes a overall well-being of the wearer.

Human clothing system:

v Clothing is the integral part of human life and has number of functions such as

·  Adornment      -   Latest fashion

·  Status              - Well -fitting

·  Modesty           - Mental comfort

·  Protection          -  To protection from external environmental

Clothing and Thermal comfort:

v Fundamental function of clothing is to keep the human body in an appropriate thermal environment in which it can maintain its thermal balance and thermal comfort.

v The human body tries to maintain a constant core temperature of about 37⁰C

v Therefore clothing is needed to protect the body against climatic changes.

v Also the clothing system should keep body temperature within median range even if the external environment and physical activities change in a much border range.

Thermal Comfort:

v The thermal comfort of man depends on clothing, climate and physical activity.

v “Effective temperature” as on index of warmth perception when human body is exposed to various temperature, humidity and air movements.

v Discomfort perception was related to lowering average skin temperature towards cold environments and increased sweating towards hot environments.

v Thermal discomfort was found to be an excellent stimulus for behavioural activity by man.

Moisture vapour permeability

         Perspiration is an important mechanism which the body uses to lose heat when its temperature starts to rise. Heat is taken from the body in order to supply the latent heat needed to evaporate the moisture from the skin.

There are two forms of perspiration:

1.     Insensible - in this form the perspiration is transported as a vapour and it passes through the air gaps between yarns in a fabric.

2.     Liquid - this form occurs at higher sweating rates and it wets the clothing which is in contact with the skin.

Waterproof breathable fabrics

          The existence of the problem of the lack of water vapour permeability in waterproof fabrics has led to the development of waterproof breathable fabrics. One approach to producing such a fabric is to use membranes attached to the fabric or coatings on the fabric which are waterproof but which will allow moisture vapour to pass through.

A water droplet has a size of around 100μm whereas a water vapour molecule has a size of around 0.0004μm. If, therefore, a membrane or fabric can be produced with pore sizes between these two limits it will then have the desired properties.

Sensorial comfort

          Sensorial comfort is concerned with how a fabric or garment feels when it is worn next to the skin. It has been found that when subjects wore various fabrics next to the skin they could not detect differences in fabric structure, drape or fabric finish but could detect differences in fabric hairiness.

           Some of the separate factors contributing to sensorial comfort which have been identified are:

1.     Tickle caused by fabric hairiness.

2.     Prickle caused by coarse and therefore stiff fibers protruding from fabric surface.