Evaluation of the Properties and Clothing Comfort of the Scandinavian Ski Dress in Wear Trials

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Abstract
Wear trials of a woven and a knitted Scandinavian cross-country ski dress with identical underwear and other garments were performed in a climatic chamber on 5 subjects who walked at -9°C on a treadmill with a 5% grade for a total of 2 hr, changing the velocity of the walk every 20 mins from 4.1 to 6.7 km/hr. The energy output corresponded to 200, and 350 kcal/m2hr, respectively. One-half of the produced sweat did not evaporate during the experiments and remained trapped in the clolh ing. Though the dress proper and its underwear covered two-thirds of the body surface area (trunk, arms, thighs), more than one-half of the not evaporated sweat was found in the garments of the peripheral area (head, hands, legs, feet). The vest contained a high amount of water, and the same partial pressure of water vapor was recorded in the spaces on either side of it, indicating that the beginning of the effective diffusion gradient through the clothing was shifted from the skin to the outer side of the vest. In the absence of wind in the trials, the clinging knitted dress assembly had a higher thermal resistance than the loosely cut woven one. But, subjectively, the woven assembly was felt to be warmer than the knitted which contained more trapped sweat. The rectal and skin temperature, the temperature and humidity in the spaces between the clothing, and the subjective thermal and humidity sensations reflected well, by regular oscillations, the cyclic changes in the intensity of metabolism. The general thermal sensations correlated better with the weighted average of the rectal and mean skin temperature than with either temperature alone. However, in the quick walking periods, the general thermal sensations were the same as the sensations in the peripheral body area, while the rating of the sensations in the central area under the dress proper was distinctly lower. Special attention should be paid to the role of the peripheral parts of the body in the evalua tion of clothing comfort.