Abstract:

To research influence of air volume under clothing on thermal properties of men’s underwear, a standing sweating fabric manikin was used to the thermal insulation and the evaporative resistance of body heat underwear and regular cotton underwear, and the thermal comforts of the both were compared. Two polynomial regression equations were established separately to predict the insulation and the evaporative resistance from air gap volumes. The results proved that the thermal insulation and the evaporative resistance of the body heat underwear gradually increase with the underwear size within the measurement range, but the increase rates of the both increase first and then decrease, while the thermal insulation and the evaporative resistance of the regular underwear increases first and the evaporative resistance of regular underwear is higher than those of the boby heat underwear of the same size, but the moisture permeability index of the regular underwear is smaller than that of the body heat underwear, which shows the thermal comfort of the body heat underwear is better.

Key words: body heat underwear, regular cotton underwear, thermal insulation, evaporative resistance, moisture permeability, thermal comfort, air gap volume