A Sweating Agile Thermal Manikin (SAM) Developed to Test Complete Clothing Systems Under Normal and Extreme Conditions

Moisture transport, thermal insulation and their interaction influence both the comfort and protective properties of clothing systems. Depending on the environmental conditions and clothing design, wind and repetitive body movements can increase the transport of heat and moisture away from the body. Thus a thermal manikin designed to test clothing realistically, particularly under extreme conditions, should be able to sweat and perform such movements. SAM is a newly developed thermal manikin capable of simulating even heavy work conditions, with sweat rates of up to 4 litres per hour and human movements such as walking and climbing. The anatomically-formed body is divided into 30 sectors, each heated separately with its own average surface-temperature sensor. In total 125 sweat outlets are distributed over the body surface, with which both vapour and liquid sweating can be simulated over all the body or just chosen parts. SAM is designed to operate at temperatures between - 30 and 40 deg C, with relative humidities ranging from 30 to 95 and up to high wind speeds. SAM compliments the existing array of sweating body-part simulation systems at EMPA, such as the sweating head ALEX and the sweating torso, by adding the capability of measuring whole-body clothing systems under realistic reproducible conditions and reducing the need for expensive human tests.