Engineering design of the thermal properties in smart and adaptive knitting structures

This work reports on research being carried out in thermal comfort in smart and adaptive knitting structures (functional structures). The total comfort of a garment comprises not only the sensorial, thermal and physiological component, but also aesthetic, colour and size aspects, which make up the so-called psychological comfort. It should be noted that when buying a piece of clothing for daily wear, the psychological point of view may well play an important role. Nevertheless it is the thermal and physiological components which have historically been the primary functional component of clothes, since they must protect us from cold and heat and, simultaneously, have to allow an appropriate moisture and heat transfer through the different layers. Thermal comfort is characterised by three important properties: • Thermal resistance; • Thermal conductivity; • Thermal absorptivity. In this research we present the engineering design of these principal thermal properties in functional structures and we propose three new equations that simulate the reality of the behaviour of this knitting structures.