Abstract
Abstract The article presents the results of an attempt to use high-resolution X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) to model the thermal insulation of clothing as one of the most important parameters affecting the heat balance between a human and his/her surroundings. Cotton knitted fabric applied in functional clothing for newborns and aramid woven fabric used in multilayer protective clothing for firefighters were the tested materials. The 3D models of real textiles based on micro-CT images were developed. Next, the models were applied to heat transfer simulations using the finite volume method. The usefulness of the models was experimentally verified using thermography with real textiles. The simulation results were consistent with the measurement results and confirmed the relationship between the thermal insulation and geometry of the textiles on the one hand and the physical parameters of the raw materials from which they were made on the other hand.
Highlights
The phenomenon of human thermal comfort is associated with many coefficients that characterize the human body, the environment where the human is, and his/her clothing
The simulation and measurement results show that the cotton knitted fabric is a better heat insulator than the aramid woven fabric
Based on the 3D images obtained with the micro-CT, two 3D models of textiles used in functional clothing, namely, cotton knitted fabric and aramid woven fabric, were developed
Summary
The phenomenon of human thermal comfort is associated with many coefficients that characterize the human body, the environment where the human is, and his/her clothing. One of the parameters of clothing with a strong impact on the heat transfer between the human body and the environment is the thermal insulation [1,2,3]. This feature is one of the most important indicators of the value in use of textiles, especially for apparel woven fabrics, knitted fabrics, and technical fabrics, because it affects the physiological properties of clothing. Because of the complex structure of composites, micro-CT has been used by Huang et al [4] to provide detailed information on the geometric mesostructure of continuous fiber composites to construct detailed geometric models of engineering textiles based on three-dimensional (3D) images. Gliścińska et al [13] applied optical coherence tomography image analysis to characterize the polymer surface layer in thermoplastic composite materials
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