Grant: Engage Grants Program

Winter clothing used during both rest and exercise poses two distinct and possibly contradictory design requirements. Firstly, when at rest, it is critical to maintain a high degree of thermal insulation in order to minimize heat loss from the body to the external environment. Secondly, when exercising, it is equally important that clothing wicks sweat to the external clothing layer in order to maximize sweat evaporation. Because of the thick and bulky clothing, a significant amount of sweat drips off the skin and becomes trapped within the fabric. In turn, this can decrease the insulation of the clothing. Therefore, when exercising in the cold, a large amount of sweat can build up in the clothing, causing both body temperature to increase during exercise and also greater rates of cooling when inactive. One ongoing goal in clothing design, therefore, has been to improve sweat movement through clothing while retaining insulation by developing special wicking fabrics. However, a limitation of most current testing protocols with new fabrics is that they are restricted to testing the fabric in isolation and on a static platform, such as testing the loft and insulation on a small piece of fabric over a hot plate. Most such tests are also done with dry fabric, which does not represent the clothing in actual use with sweat or condensation. What is missing in industrial testing is the controlled testing of actual clothing worn during functional exercise. The primary aim of this research is to better understand the insulation and wicking ability of different clothing systems during actual use in cold environments.