Precision of Measurement of Water Vapor Resistance of Fabrics With Different Surface Roughness by a Skin Model

Skin models are used for determination of water and thermal resistance of fabrics. Measurement in these instruments starts with determination of water vapour resistance of a boundary layer above the sweating hotplate. In the second step, the hotplate is covered by the tested fabrics and the instrument measures WV resistance of the fabric and that of boundary layer. Afterwards, the difference between these measurements presents the required WV resistance of the measured fabric, provided that WV resistance of the boundary layer is in both measurements identical. However, fabric surface roughness may change WV resistance of the boundary layer in the second measurement. In the paper, the effect of the fabric surface on measurement precision is theoretically analyzed and experimentally verified by procedure, which provides same air surface friction during both steps of the measurement. Experiments confirmed certain but small effect of the fabric surface roughness on the measurement precision.

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