Objective Assessment of the Cooling
Function of Textile Products Based
on the Combination of WATson
and Human Perception
E. Classen
1 Introduction
Comfort is one important issue for clothing. Comfort not only affects the wellbeing of the wearer, but also his performance and efficiency. Comfort is a complex,
highly subjective quality, often defined as the absence of discomfort. The four important aspects of comfort in clothing are thermophysiological comfort, skin sensorial comfort, ergonomic comfort, and psychological comfort [1]. Wear comfort is
a complex phenomenon that cannot be properly judged by the customer through
simply trying the garment on in the store, nor can it define by sales representative.
However, wear comfort can be measured because it is not entirely an undefined,
purely subjective individual sensation. Wear comfort is a quantifiable consequence
of the body-climate-clothing interaction [2].
Today, the physiological function of textiles and whole garment systems can be
measured by a set of laboratory test methods (e.g., sweating guarded hotplate, thermal
manikin, sweating thermal manikin). Laboratory test methods are fast and can easily
determine different aspects of comfort with high reproducibility. However, the results
of laboratory test methods must be correlated with human reception in wearer trials
because laboratory tests do not directly measure the comfort.
Clothing with additional functions is more and more important in the field of sports
but also in protective clothing. The cooling textiles should support the efficiency of
athletes and workers. The cooling effect should improve the comfort and the wellbeing. During high activity and/or in warm environments the body core temperature
can increase and human starts sweating to prevent an overheating of the body. The
evaporation of liquid sweat is the most effective process to cool the body. The cooling
textile should support the body to keep the body temperature constant. The cooling
E. Classen (B)
Hohenstein Institute for Textile Innovation gGmbH, Schlosssteige 1, 74357 Boennigheim,
Germany
e-mail: e.classen@hohenstein.de
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
A. Majumdar et al. (eds.), Functional Textiles and Clothing 2020,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9376-5_1
3
Function of Textile Products Based
on the Combination of WATson
and Human Perception
E. Classen
1 Introduction
Comfort is one important issue for clothing. Comfort not only affects the wellbeing of the wearer, but also his performance and efficiency. Comfort is a complex,
highly subjective quality, often defined as the absence of discomfort. The four important aspects of comfort in clothing are thermophysiological comfort, skin sensorial comfort, ergonomic comfort, and psychological comfort [1]. Wear comfort is
a complex phenomenon that cannot be properly judged by the customer through
simply trying the garment on in the store, nor can it define by sales representative.
However, wear comfort can be measured because it is not entirely an undefined,
purely subjective individual sensation. Wear comfort is a quantifiable consequence
of the body-climate-clothing interaction [2].
Today, the physiological function of textiles and whole garment systems can be
measured by a set of laboratory test methods (e.g., sweating guarded hotplate, thermal
manikin, sweating thermal manikin). Laboratory test methods are fast and can easily
determine different aspects of comfort with high reproducibility. However, the results
of laboratory test methods must be correlated with human reception in wearer trials
because laboratory tests do not directly measure the comfort.
Clothing with additional functions is more and more important in the field of sports
but also in protective clothing. The cooling textiles should support the efficiency of
athletes and workers. The cooling effect should improve the comfort and the wellbeing. During high activity and/or in warm environments the body core temperature
can increase and human starts sweating to prevent an overheating of the body. The
evaporation of liquid sweat is the most effective process to cool the body. The cooling
textile should support the body to keep the body temperature constant. The cooling
E. Classen (B)
Hohenstein Institute for Textile Innovation gGmbH, Schlosssteige 1, 74357 Boennigheim,
Germany
e-mail: e.classen@hohenstein.de
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
A. Majumdar et al. (eds.), Functional Textiles and Clothing 2020,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9376-5_1
3