Evaluation of dynamic thermal behavior of fibrous layers in presence of phase change material microcapsules

• We developed a dynamic system to evaluate the thermal behavior of fibrous layers containing PCM.
• The system is able to resemble the triple condition of ‘human body–clothing layers–environment’ simultaneously.
• Two indices have been introduced to represent the thermal behavior of body skin/layers in the presence of PCMs.
• The system was verified by the effect of PCMs existence effect of PCMs’ melting point during thermal transient.
• The results showed that the system can adequately appraise the effect of PCMs on the thermo-regulating performance.

In this work, a dynamic system has been developed to evaluate the thermal behavior of fibrous layers containing PCM1. The system is able to concurrently resemble the triple condition of ‘human body–clothing layers–environment’. The system hotplate, acting as the metabolic heat generator of human body, is able to self-adjust depending on the activity level of body section. An adjustable layering unit has been placed on the hotplate to simulate clothing layers. The environmental condition was rapidly changed from 0 to beyond 60 °C and from 5 to 100% relative humidity in order to prepare a transient condition. On-line data acquisition software has been designed to record and monitor data of the upper hotplate (skin) and spaces between the fibrous layers. Two indices were introduced and extracted to represent the thermal behavior of body skin/layers in the presence of PCMs at different environments. The system was further verified by studying the effect of PCMs presence and their increase on the thermal behavior of body skin/fibrous layers. The effect of PCMs’ melting point, during thermal transient, was finally presented by the system.