Development of Thermally Comfortable Clothing for Hot and Humid Environment

Comfort is essential in sportswear, where athlete requires transportation and evaporation of sweat from body. In addition to that water vapor permeability, thermal resistance and air permeability are also inevitable elements that decide thermal comfort of sportswear. Double face knitted fabrics are usually used to make sure excellent comfort of cloth in active and sports wears. In this research, two faced knitted fabrics were prepared using standard polyester and micro denier polyester in combinations with cellulosic yarns (micro-modal, micro-tencel, modal, tencel, viscose and cotton) in inner and outer layers, respectively. The most important characteristics of thermal comfort like thermal resistance, water vapor permeability, air permeability and overall moisture management capacity (OMMC) were measured for all the double face knitted fabric samples. The investigational outcome established that the modal, micro-modal, tencel, micro-tencel, viscose and cotton yarns in combinations with standard polyester and micro denier polyester yarns affect the thermo physiological comfort characteristics considerably. The results also showed that micro denier polyester/micro-tencel combination gave best OMMC, while the air permeability of polyester/viscose, water vapor permeability of polyester/tencel and thermal resistance of polyester/modal combinations were measured to be the best. This paper elaborates the thermal comfort behavior of all possible combinations of double faced knitted fabric in detail with reasoning.