A Study on Thermal Comfort Comparison between Tencel and Polyester Indoor Cothing

Abstract

This study compared the thermal comfort of indoor clothing from Tencel material that is getting higherin demand due to being eco-friendly with superior wettability, with that from Polyester material thatdespite being most widely used for indoor clothing, rapidly discharges body sweat due to low wettability. The experiments were performed in the two manners, objective evaluation under the conditions of anartificial climate chamber and subjective evaluation of wearing the given clothes at home followed byfilling in the questionnaire. Subjects were 8 healthy elderly women in their 60's who spend majority oftheir time at home rather than in social activities, and comparison was made on skin temperature andhumidity inside clothing at exercise and relaxation states under early summer environment. Based on these results, wearing Tencel material clothing maintained cooler temperatures under warmenvironment rather than when wearing Polyester material clothing, thus enabling activities under morecomfortable state. Regarding humidity inside clothing, parts with twofold clothing did not show differencebetween Tencel and Polyester, but the onefold arm showed lower when wearing Tencel. With this results,Tencel is regarded as more comfortable and nicer than Polyester.