New equipment to improve thermoregulation
New measuring equipment has become available to scientists at the Hohenstein Institute in Boennigheim that allows them to evaluate the wear and sleep comfort of socks, gloves and children's bedding in a more precise way.
Thermally segmented test mannequin Charlene simulates the heat generated by the human body, just as her adult counterpart Charlie 4 does, with the aid of a computer controlled heating system. Like their human counterparts, Charlene, who weighs 20 kilograms and is 92 centimetres tall, produces far less heat than Charlie 4, who weighs in at 75 kilograms and is 175 centimetres tall.
Because a child's thermo-regulation ability is not fully developed, the body may react slowly or not at all to changes in ambient temperature. Furthermore, children’s sweat glands are not all fully active. As a result, the risk of becoming chilled or overheating is disproportionately greater than it is for adults.
Unlike Charlie 4, Charlene is made from synthetic materials rather than copper. A computer controlled heating system makes it possible to independently regulate the heat generated by six different segments of the body.
In addition to its insulating effect, the sleeping comfort of bedding is defined by its capacity to absorb perspiration and draw sweat away from the sleeper effectively. Because Charlene does not sweat, the measurements created are combined with those from the Hohenstein skin model. The skin model enables assessments of moisture transport resistance as a measure of "breathability", and perspiration transport, sweat buffering, and drying time of the textile materials used as well.
In the "sweating hand" and "sweating foot" models, the functional principles of the skin model and thermally segmented testing mannequins have been combined to generate both moisture and heat. For the first time, this allows researchers to simulate as realistically as possible the special thermal characteristics of human extremities. Up until now, all the materials used in shoes and socks had to be tested individually with the aid of the skin model as well to assess reliably the wearing comfort of these combinations.
