Using a Thermal Simulator to Determine the Amount of Time that Humans are Thermally Protected by Fabrics Containing Phase Change Materials

In this paper, a simple original method and instrument for testing the thermal efficiency of garments containing PCM particles is described. The efficiency is characterized by the length of time that the garment can offer protection, when the effective thermal resistance is at least two times higher then the thermal resistance of the same garment without any PCM function. The related instrument can simulate any boundary conditions typical for the wearing of PCM garments. The good functionality of the instrument was verified by the tests. The experiments revealed that the length of time that the tested commercial garments could offer protection is quite short.