Thermal Simulation of Close-Fitting Sportswear

A novel and intelligent product development approach is required in this fast-growing and advanced technological era. Therefore, textile researchers have worked intensively to create efficient and transparent solutions for complex developments by using advanced modeling and simulation tools and techniques. This paper addresses a process for the thermal simulation of sportswear by considering the human thermophysiological model and important thermal properties of fabrics, i.e., thermal resistance, evaporative resistance, and permeability index. The results of the simulation are illustrated in terms of core body and mean skin temperatures. Moreover, results are validated by wear trials showing good consistency. This study is beneficial to the development of clothing for specific sports and the evaluation of comfort and heat stress during different sports activities.

Individualization of Thermophysiological Models for Thermal Sensation Assessment in Complex Environments: A Preliminary Study

Thermal comfort of drivers and passengers inside cars compartments is a subject bouncing back to the spotlight with the electrification of vehicles. In fact, air conditioning and heating systems can reduce the battery autonomy of electric vehicles by up to 50% under certain conditions. On the other hand, although some researchers attempted to consider the individualization of thermal sensation and comfort models, the most used thermal sensation and comfort models nowadays are still those that consider a standard average person. Many studies showed the limitations of these models in predicting thermal comfort for different populations in complex environments. Therefore, if a personal thermal comfort at minimum vehicle energy consumption is required, a deep consideration should be given to the understanding of the individualization of the thermophysiological model and to identifying key parameters that have the most influence on thermal comfort. In order to evaluate the impact of different parameters on thermal sensation and comfort, a literature review was undertaken followed by a sensitivity analysis of some potentially influential parameters such as the basal metabolic rate, body weight, cardiac output, body fat content and clothing by considering the influence of their variations on thermal neutrality status and thermal sensation and comfort.

An Exercise Health Simulation Method Based on Integrated Human Thermophysiological Model

Research of healthy exercise has garnered a keen research for the past few years. It is known that participation in a regular exercise program can help improve various aspects of cardiovascular function and reduce the risk of suffering from illness. But some exercise accidents like dehydration, exertional heatstroke, and even sudden death need to be brought to attention. If these exercise accidents can be analyzed and predicted before they happened, it will be beneficial to alleviate or avoid disease or mortality. To achieve this objective, an exercise health simulation approach is proposed, in which an integrated human thermophysiological model consisting of human thermal regulation model and a nonlinear heart rate regulation model is reported. The human thermoregulatory mechanism as well as the heart rate response mechanism during exercise can be simulated. On the basis of the simulated physiological indicators, a fuzzy finite state machine is constructed to obtain the possible health transition sequence and predict the exercise health status. The experiment results show that our integrated exercise thermophysiological model can numerically simulate the thermal and physiological processes of the human body during exercise and the predicted exercise health transition sequence from finite state machine can be used in healthcare.