Exploring the effect of clothing moisture content on heat and moisture transfer from the human body using a sweating thermal manikin

Abstract

Evaporative heat loss is an important component of the human body's energy balance and several developed thermal comfort models are available to assess heat and mass transfer during human sweating. However, the impact of sweat-soaked clothing due to human perspiration on heat and moisture transfer from the body remains understudied. In this study, the thermal and moisture properties of typical summer clothing were evaluated and moisture adsorption and desorption curves were obtained. The heat losses of the human body in different sweating states were compared using a sweating thermal manikin. It was found that the clothing moisture content and the clothing coverage ratio had a significant effect on the human body heat loss. As the sweating rate increases, additional resistances of the sweat moisture transfer will be added in the sweat-soaked clothing, which would adversely affect the skin temperature. The results show that the total thermal resistance of fully wetted clothing decreased by an average of almost 30% compared to dry clothing ensembles. To account for such differences, the clothing thermal and evaporative resistance, along with the temperature and vapor pressure at varying moisture contents were evaluated and predicted with empirical equations. This enables integrating a dynamic heat and moisture transfer model for the sweat-soaked clothing into a prevailing thermo-physiological model. Accounting for real clothing physical parameters is vital when evaluating thermal comfort in hot and humid weather conditions.