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Thermo physiological comfort is an important sportswear criterion in terms of sportsmen's comfort and performance. In this study, heat and mass transfer of active sportswear were evaluated. Heat transmission was measured by thermal resistance; relative water vapour permeability was measured to assess moisture vapour transmission; air permeability was measured to determine air passage; and sweat response was measured by water absorption, specific flow rates and drying time. It was observed that the structural parameters of fabric and the cross-sectional shape of filaments significantly affected the comfort characteristics of knitted active sportswear.

Liquid water transport is a critical factor that affects the physiological comfort of sportswear. In this study, active kinds of sportswear of different international brands are studied and their liquid transport performances are evaluated. The fabric structure has been analysed by using a Leicamicroscope and the filament cross section has been analysed by using scanning electron microscopy. Vertical wicking against gravity is measured by using a vertical wicking tester. The in-plane flow of liquid is measured by using an in-plane gravimetric wicking tester. The liquid transport along the thickness is measured in terms of absorbency by using a gravimetric absorbency tester. It has been observed that the fabric structure, filament cross sectional shape and filament denier have substantial influence on liquid water transport.It is seen that with an increase in the fibre specific surface area, by changing the fibre shape factor and diameter, the wicking rate throughout the fabric increases.

Thermophysiological comfort properties of polyester elastane-plated fabric have been studied by varying the polyester filament shape factor, elastane linear density, and fabric loop length. Thermal and evaporative resistances were measured using sweating guarded hot plate. Absorption and wicking properties were measured using M/K GATS. Moisture management properties were measured by moisture management tester. Multilinear regression equations were calculated for all the properties by using generalized linear model (GLM). The hypothesis tests were performed on estimated model (GLM) and the probability values (p-values) were calculated for each variable. Most of the heat and moisture transmission properties were found to be significantly affected by all three variables (i.e. filament shape factor, elastane linear density, and fabric loop length) at 95% level of significance.

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