A new experimental study of influence of fabric permeability, clothing sizes, openings and wind on regional ventilation rates

In this study, a local ventilation rates (VR) measuring system based on stead-state method was developed. This system can measure the local VR of the right arm, the left arm, the chest and the back locations of the upper body garment simultaneously. The whole clothing VR can also be computed. To study the influence of fabric permeability, clothing sizes, hem opening, and wind on local VR of the right arm, the chest and the back of the working garments, 9 jackets with different sizes and fabric permeability (permeable, semi-permeable and impermeable) were made. The results showed that the local VR for each garment location were significantly different. The chest had the largest local VR. Clothing ventilation rates were not liner with garment sizes. Closing garment bottom decreased more air exchange for chest and back comparatively. Wind increased both local and whole VR significantly. But the impacts were different according to different locations. © 2013 The Korean Fiber Society and Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.