Spatial and temporal migration of sweat: from skin to clothing

Abstract

PurposeMoisture accumulation in clothing affects human performance and productivity through its impact on thermal balance and various aspects of discomfort. Building on our laboratory’s work on mapping sweat production across the body, this study aimed to obtain detailed spatial and temporal maps showing how this sweat migrates into a single clothing layer (T-shirt) during physical exercise.MethodEight male participants performed running exercise in a warm environment. Garment sweat absorption was mapped over a total running time of 50 min, in 10 separated running trials of different durations (5 min increments). After running, the garment was dissected into 22 different parts and local sweat absorption (ABSlocal) was quantified by weighing each garment part before and after drying. From ABSlocal, garment total sweat absorption (ABStotal) was estimated.ResultsAfter 50 min, Tcore rose from 37 ± 0.2 to 38.6 ± 0.3 °C, HR increased from 69 ± 15 to 163 ± 12 bpm (p < 0.001), GSL was 586 ± 86 g m−2. Clear patterns of sweat absorption reduction from superior-to-inferior and from medial-to-lateral T-shirt zones were observed, with the mid back medial and the low front hem showing the highest, respectively.ConclusionsQuantitative data on garment total and regional sweat absorption were obtained and considerable variation between different garment zones was identified. These data can support the development of sport and personal protective clothing with the end goal to prevent workers’ heat-related injuries as well as maximise human performance and productivity.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00421-018-3941-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Real-Time Humidity Measurement during Sports Activity using Optical Fibre Sensing

“…This is likely caused by the measurement position of the OFHS and commercial devices being slightly different, therefore the RH readings from the two sensors represent slightly different values. Cotton is a hydrophilic material and polyester has hydrophobic property [7,27]. It can be seen from the two graphs that there is a significant difference in RH readings between cotton and polyester cases.…”

“…Moreover, when the volunteer wears a polyester T-shirt the humidity levels recovered much quicker than that in cotton case when the subject rests. Cotton is a hydrophilic material and polyester has hydrophobic property [7,27]. It can be seen from the two graphs that there is a significant difference in RH readings between cotton and polyester cases.…”

“…It was demonstrated that garments with incorporated microporous membranes had superior performance at low ambient air humidity but were less effective for moisture transfer from the body in the rain. Raccuglia et al mapped sweat properties in different regions of a garment using infrared images after treadmill exercise [7]. Infrared images are assumed to be proportional to sweat adsorbed within the T-shirt after it has been removed.…”

Single-Sided Jacquard Knit Fabric Development and Seamless Ski Underwear Zoning Design based on Body Mapping Sportswear

“…At present, most of the sportswear studies related to mapping design focus on the stitching of different fabrics, fabric structure, and micro-climate on the human skin surface [10]; however, there is few discussion on the effects of changed fabric structure on fabric properties. A novel type of sportswear with different fabric stitching at different positions was designed according to the heat and humidity distribution rules of human body [11].…”

Concurrent and real-time measurement of fabric liquid moisture management properties using a novel sweating simulator

“…This limits the study of the spatial and temporal migration of perspiration on fabric, which typically appears on human clothing resulting from nonuniform regional sweat rates. 14,15 The spatial and temporal distribution of sweat on human clothing arises from the non-uniform sweat distribution on the human torso. In studies of sweat mapping of the upper body, the highest regional sweat rate was observed on the central upper and middle back, reaching 1.2 lm −2 h −1 to 1.7 lm −2 h −1 with increasing intensity of exercise.…”