Design and performance of an air inflatable suit in enhancing personal thermal management

作     者：HE JiaZhen LU YeHu SU WenZhen WANG FangMing SONG WenFang WANG LaiLi WANG Min 

作者机构：College of Textile and Clothing EngineeringSoochow UniversitySuzhou 215021China Key Laboratory of Clothing Design and TechnologyMinistry of EducationDonghua UniversityShanghai 200051China Nantong Textile and Silk Industrial Technology Research InstituteNantong 226300China Suzhou Xingfengqiang Textile Technology Co.Ltd.Suzhou 215227China Garment Digital Engineering CenterSchool of Art and DesignGuangdong University of TechnologyGuangzhou 510000China School of Fashion Design&EngineeringZhejiang Sci-Tech UniversityHangzhou 310018China 

出 版 物：《Science China(Technological Sciences)》 (中国科学（技术科学英文版）)

年 卷 期：2023年第66卷第9期

页      面：2637-2650页

核心收录：

学科分类：1305[艺术学-设计学（可授艺术学、工学学位）] 13[艺术学] 

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.51906169) the Nantong Science and Technology Project(Grant No.JC2021004) the Natural Science Research Project for Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province(Grant No.21KJA540004) the Suzhou Science and Technology Project(Grant No.SS202147) the Open Project of Key Laboratory of Clothing Design and Technology(Grant No.KCLDT2020-04) 

主　　题：air inflatable suit thermal comfort thermal insulation thermal management energy saving perceptual response 

摘      要：Maintaining human thermal comfort in cold indoor environments is crucial but usually involves excessive energy consumption and massive greenhouse gas emissions. Thermoregulating the human body by using advanced clothing is emerging as a promising solution to effectively and energy-efficiently achieve personal thermal management. An air inflatable suit(AirST)using a series of air chambers as the thermal insert was developed for the purpose of adjusting clothing thermal insulation and hence improving personal thermal comfort. The thermal insulation regulating performance of AirST was investigated through thermal manikin tests and wear trials. Compared with the AirST without air inflation, AirST after inflation with air had a desired effect, which could not only increase local clothing thermal insulation by a range from 4.5% to 24.8% but also alleviate cold strain and provide significantly higher local skin temperatures, mean skin temperature and mean body temperature. After inflation, AirST successfully improved the whole-, upper-and lower-body thermal sensations in a cool environment. The acceptable heating setpoint temperature by the air conditioner could be decreased while using AirST with inflation, which saved approximately 30% of building energy consumption. As the AirST without air inflation can also be worn as regular windproof clothing, this versatility saved approximately 12 kg CO_(2)e emissions in the production process.