Abstract:

To investigate the distributio features of air gaps of different clothing styles, and their influence on local heat transfer from human body to environment, three experiment shirts were designed and made with fabric the same size but different style (H-shaped, A-shaped and X-shaped). The research used the thermal infrared camera to detect the temperature distribution of the naked and the clothing surface woth high precision. Meanwhile, in order to charaacterize the local thermal transfer performance of clothing, the human body was divided into different segments, and the temperature idfference between the local clothing surface and the skinof each section was quantified. The results show that the local body characteristics influences the local thermal transfer performance along with the clothing styles. On one hand, the local thermal transfer performance of clothing has difference among the body segments；on the other hand, A-shaped shirt has the best thermal insulation performance, and its surface temperatures in the abdomen, waist, lower back, front buttock and back buttock area are significant higher than those of other two shirts, while in the upper chest, lower chest and upper back area, no sognificant differences exist in local heat transfer performance among three shirts because of the apophysis of skeletal muscles.

Key words: clothing style, air gap, local thermal transfer, clothing surface temperature