Heat and mass transfer through outerwear clothing for protection from cold: influence of geometrical, structural and mass characteristics of the textile layers

This paper presents a comprehensive experimental study, conducted on a series of woven and non-woven fabric samples from different materials (cotton, polyester, and polyamide) and 14 three-layer systems of textile materials, used for production of outerwear clothing for protection from cold. Heat and mass transfer properties, related to the thermophysiological comfort of the outerwear clothing, namely conductive thermal resistance, water vapor resistance, relative water vapor permeability, air permeability, accumulative one-way transport of liquids, and overall moisture management capacity, were determined for the system of layers and the compound single layers. The transfer properties of the single layers were presented as a function of their thickness, mass per unit area, and areal porosity. The transfer properties of the system of layers were presented as a function of the thickness, mass per unit area, and bulk density of the systems. Regression analysis was applied to derive regression equations. The results obtained allowed assessment of the existence and trend of the influence, as well as evaluation of the strength of the dependences.