Search

In the past only health care professionals wore facemasks daily, but in recent times almost all citizens of many countries are expected to wear facemasks to reduce infection at work and in public. Because of SARS and now COVID-19, facemasks have become an essential personal protective equipment to fight against infectious disease. Frequent use of mask has proven to provide significant protection in reducing infections, even though there are complaints about its long-term usage. Although there are many types of masks, the surgical mask and the N95 respirator are the common ones. In this study, the surgical mask and the N95 respirator were compared with a no-mask condition. Results indicated that participants wearing the N95 respirator had the most significant thermal discomfort. The surgical mask was also significantly uncomfortable when compared to the no mask condition. Infrared thermographic results indicated that the heat retained when wearing a mask is higher than without a mask. Results of this study show the importance in mask design to have sufficient protection, comfort and fit.

Helmets are often recommended as primary safety equipment for protecting the head. Several studies have been conducted to test the effectiveness of different impact-absorbing liner materials and their response to high impact loading. The standard helmets have an impact-absorbing liner of a single material, which may not be the best design approach. Hence, the possibility of modular helmet liner design with two different materials has been explored in this study. The chapter presents a preliminary Finite element analysis (FEA) study to evaluate the performance of hard foam, soft foam and a combination of both the foams as impact-absorbing liners for helmets. The results suggest that the hard foam liner showed better performance for high impact loads, while the soft foam liner was more effective for low impact loads. The results also indicated that the modular design-based helmet liners developed using both the hard and soft foam performed better than single foam liners.

Functions like protection and comfort are essential requirements of the footwear or orthosis. Naturally, the status of foot anatomy features, judged from both inside and skin surface, is of great significance to the effectiveness of the product. In this study, a novel method to estimate the foot anatomy structural deformation from the skin surface in three typical postures is proposed, which can effectively reveal the inner anatomy status without using CT or MRI. Technology of scanning with range sensor is adopted, and it considerably promotes the efficiency of acquisition of the foot texture model. Reverse engineering tools are used to precisely catch the anatomical landmark locations, and the relevant data is shown in the way of comparison.

Functional and smart clothing has been an up-and-coming products for fashion industry. The human model or mannequin, which is a bridge between customer's physical information and design utilization, has vital importance as primary design tool. The physiological messages of human body may have growing needs for design. The traditional geometric human models (G-model), which convey surface anthropometric data, such as shape, volume and size, may be advanced to functional model. Thermal function is highlighted in this study, based upon an emphasized potential of developing new thermal functional clothing for health enhancement and rehabilitation purpose. After reviewing theoretical basis on thermoregulation and body temperature, as well as the future application in fashion industry, the methodology of developing thermal human model (T-model) is introduced, including experiments, data pre-processing and modeling process. The T-model originated from relatively accurate 3D body scanning data has visualized and quantified skin temperature data obtained from thermographs, which may be adopted to 3D fashion design system, e.g. designing, patternmaking, pattern revision, virtual fitting and grading for functional clothing.

Understanding dynamic foot is essential for foot health, footwear design and construction. This study was designed to investigate foot deformation during walking. A pilot experiment using motion capture system was conducted to record the landmark motion. The data showed the foot motion including landmark trajectories and the foot changes with time. In addition, the relative landmark position was further analyzed. The result showed the changes of foot landmarks. Application of this study will be useful for modeling dynamic foot shape, foot evaluation and footwear design.