“Clothing physiology, the study of the interaction between clothing, the body, and the ambient climate, provides the science for quantifying comfort. With over sixty years of experience, Hohenstein experts are thought leaders in the clothing physiology field,” the Institute reports.

“We have developed many proprietary technologies to define and measure specific thermal comfort factors. Hohenstein works with companies to test textiles for these factors in order to determine optimal product design and to verify marketing claims such as for cooling effects and moisture management.”

Evaporative heat loss tester

In response to high client demand for reliable methods to quantify cooling effects, Hohenstein has added a second WATson evaporative heat loss tester and doubled its testing capacity for verifying the thermophysiological cooling power of performance fabrics.

WATson measures critical attributes that affect a fabric’s thermal cooling performance. It models the interactions of textiles and human skin, i.e., human thermoregulation, in a variety of ambient climates. The system analyses minute evaporative heat loss changes across the skin’s surface and accurately quantifies the cooling power the textile provides. WATson technology requires a 10”x10” fabric sample to analyse performance for product development, quality assurance, and marketing claims.

Second WATson system

“The first WATson system we designed has been booked far beyond its capacity recently,” said Dr Beringer. “With the addition of the second WATson system, our lead times are back to normal and we can quickly provide clients with the data they need to confirm the cooling effect of their product in the specific climate scenarios most relevant to the product’s intended use.”

In addition to the established “standard apparel protocol” for performance fabrics that nearly all customers use to ensure comparability, the WATson system can replicate a wide variety of custom climates and set-ups while measuring the textile’s ability to manage moisture and influence the evaporative heat loss, according to the Institute. “The result is a comprehensive report that reliably measures how products will perform once consumers wear them in real life.”

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