A mannequin that sweats, moves and has a human body temperature could help clothes designers create better military clothing, sportswear and even spacesuits, its creators say.
Monitoring how well a clothing material dissipates or insulates heat and moisture is important to modern clothes designers, say Jintu Fan and Yisong Chen of the Institute of Textiles and Clothing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
鈥淭he mannequin will be extremely useful for better understanding the dynamics of heat and moisture transfer from the human body to the environment,鈥� Fan says.
Advertisement
The prototype mannequin is filled with pipes containing heated water to maintain a 鈥渂ody temperature鈥� of 37C.
Unlike existing mannequins, the model can also be manipulated into a variety of positions, providing more detailed information for clothes designers.
Different skins
A custom built 鈥渟kin鈥� made up of three separate layers also simulates perspiration.
The top layer allows water to pass through while the bottom layer is water resistant. The middle layers controls the perspiration process by only allowing water to pass through in vapour form.
As the mannequin鈥檚 temperature increases, water stored behind this section generates simulated 鈥渟weat鈥�. The skin can even be removed and replaced with skins of different porosity, to evaluate the garment鈥檚 performance in the face of varying rates of perspiration.
Temperature and humidity sensors located around the body show how well a garment deals with perspiration.
During testing, Fan says that the mannequin 鈥渄emonstrated high accuracy and reproducibility鈥� of results.
Journal Reference: Measurement Science and Technology (Vol 13, Issue 7 July 2002)