Clothing comfort indicates the comfortableness of the in varying environmental situations while wearing specific clothing. Various factors affect clothing comfort such as skin moisture perception and heat transmission characteristics via clothing; however, cool and warm touch are the most important factors (Kwon, Yi, & Sung,1999; Hong & Kim, 2007; Manshahia & Das, 2014). The thermal comfort of clothing is perceived through sensory receptors on the skin surface and is highly related to a cool and warm touch.

An infrared thermography camera detects infrared-ray-form energy, a type of electromagnetic wave radiated from the subject's surface that assesses the intensity of radiant heat. The changing intensity then presents a real-time infrared thermal distribution using various colors. The advantages of an infrared thermography camera are the ability to use a non-contacting method to measure temperature distribution and analyze temperatures. Therefore, an infrared thermography camera is widely used in material characteristic assessment, boiler heat distribution analysis, process control, and building insulation assessments that indicate system deficiencies. This technique has also recently been used in human-body-related temperature measurements with potential for application to medical fields that include breast cancer examinations, joint muscle disorders, and body reactions under specific conditions. The most significant advantage of infrared thermography cameras to evaluate heat conductivity according to wearing conditions are its inexpensive price, ease-of-use and visual representation of surface heat dispersion on clothing that maintains body temperature and helps dissipate sweat(B. Lee, Hong, & Y. Lee, 2010; Lee, K. Hong, & S. A. Hong, 2007). This technique is also used in a quantitative analysis of thermal sensation when wearing clothes (Choi & Lee, 2008).

This study helps develop a method to evaluate the warm feeling of fabrics using an infrared thermal image of a small test specimen. An infrared thermal image helped develop5 types of fabrics for heat storage fabric; consequently, the average temperature difference of the human palm when the fabric is on or off was used for the scale of the fabrics’ warm feeling. The relationshipbetween this average temperature difference on the palm surface Qmax, and warmth keep-ability rate was examined. Fabric had a significant average temperature difference in the infrared thermal image with alow Qmax value and was evaluated with high values in the warmth keep-ability rate. Infrared thermography camera was shown to be effective in the fabric's warm feeling evaluation.

• Jung Soon Lee(Chungnam National University)
• Myoung-Ok Kim(Chungnam National University)