ABSTRACT

　The under-garment air, namely the clothing microclimate is in general different air conditions from the ambient air conditions, and it plays an important role in human thermal environments. Extensive research has been published on clothing insulation, however, knowledge about the formation of the clothing microclimate is limited. In order to develop a methodology to understand the clothing microclimate, in the present study, the applicability of PIV（Particle Image Velocimetry） and CFD（Computational Fluid Dynamic） to clothed human thermal environment is examined. From the comparisons of different air-gap sized clothed humans, the observed distributions of air temperature and air flow are reasonably explained. The relationship between the average Nusselt number and the Rayleigh number agrees well with results of previous studies. From the subjective experiments with wearing different air-gap sized clothing, air flow in clothing microclimate can be induced for loose-fitting wearers, and thus loose-fitting wearers can feel the ventilation inside the clothing microclimate. The different conditions in clothing microclimate can be considered using the human thermal load evaluation. The human thermal load is lowered for loose fitting because of increases in convective heat loss and evaporative heat loss. A series of studies presented here can be utilized with accuracy for future clothing designs and fabrications.

DECENTE SPORTS SCIENCE Vol.43/The DESCENTE AND ISHIMOTO MEMORIAL FOUNDATION FOR THE PROMOTION SPORTS SCIENCE