Effect of Ceramics on the Physical and Thermo-physiological Performance of Warm-up Suit

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a warm-up suit that is comfortable as well as having a good thermal performance. Heat-insulating water vapor-permeable fabrics for warm-up suit were developed by applying ceramic powders to hydrophilic polyurethane films, which were then incorporated into textiles. Two types of ceramic compounds were used in this study: MU-4N and RT-3. The infrared emissivity was 92.6 for MU-4N and 94.8 for RT-3. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of using ceramics in a warm-up suit, we examined the effects of ceramics on selected variables: thermo-physiological properties of the clothing systems (using thermal manikin), and thermo-physiological responses and subjective sensations of human subjects. The infrared emissivity of textiles increased when ceramics were added to the film laminate. Ceramics slightly increased the thermal insulation value and decreased the water vapor transmission rate. The thermal manikin test also showed that ceramics enhanced the thermal insulation of the clothing system without increasing the evaporative resistance. The microclimate temperature was kept higher when subjects wore the warm-up suit with ceramics.

Investigation of Thermal Behavior of 3D PET Knits with Different Bioceramic Additives

“…Other treated fabrics showed only a slight increase in thermal resistance compared to the control sample. Other authors [11] investigated textile fabrics coated with PU film with 20% content of ceramic compounds on the polyester substrate and obtained a similar difference in R ct values between the control sample and samples with ceramics, as it is stated for sample C1 in this study.…”

“…For sample C2 emissivity was not measured as the method used is not suitable for samples with patterns. Comparing with authors [11], who investigated fabrics coated with PU film containing 20% ceramics, we have obtained a slightly lesser increase in emissivity for all tested samples. However, our results are better than those presented by other authors [19] for fabrics made from fibers containing varying amounts of ceramic-bearing polymeric fibers.…”

“…The bioceramic additives as being highly sensitive to far-infrared radiation may considerably influence the thermal behavior of the fabric [6][7][8]. Authors who studied how ceramics incorporated into textile affected their thermal properties [9][10][11], concluded that ceramics absorbed FIR from the body and contained the heat so that the temperature difference between the body and the garment was reduced and the body thus retained its heat better. So, energy from the human body is transferred to these ceramic particles, which are acting as "perfect absorbers", maintain their temperature at sufficiently high levels and then emit FIR back to the body.…”

“…Applying microceramic particles on the surface of the fiber (using partial penetration as laminate or penetration through the whole fabric volume in terms of soaking), coated or impregnated textile materials are not resistant to the multiple washing and cleaning procedures due to poor fixing of these additives on the textile surface [9]. Another method to incorporate ceramics additives in FIR textiles for thermoregulatory properties improvement was presented in studies [11,12] where Al 2 O 3 , SiO 2 , ZrO 2 and TiO 2 were laminated onto breathable hydrophilic polyurethane (PU) films and then incorporated into PET textile material by lamination as an additional layer. As a result, in terms of comfort properties, authors have suggested adding ceramics onto uncoated fabric.…”

Utilisation of far infrared-emitting garments for optimising performance and recovery in sport: Real potential or new fad? A systematic review

“…It resulted in a selection of twenty studies which were then read in full to ensure they met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of the studies that were read in full, two studies were excluded because they did not present the main outcomes [ 21 , 22 ], one study was excluded for replicated data [ 23 ], five studies were excluded for lack of information [ 24 – 28 ], and one study was excluded because it was published in another language than English or French, although the abstract was written in English [ 29 ]. A total of eleven studies were ultimately identified and included in this review ( Table 1 ).…”