Design of sports-abaya and its thermal comfort evaluation

The market for sports-abaya in Saudi Arabia is growing due to an increasing participation rate of Islamic women in fitness and sports activities. As mandated by religious law, an abaya must be worn over daily clothes or sportswear by women in order to hide their body contour. The additional layer of the abaya will affect thermal comfort and performance of the wearer. Hence, a sports-abaya needs to be specifically designed to facilitate thermal comfort. This necessitates the selection and evaluation of fabrics appropriate for use in the production of sports-abaya. This study compared two fabrics (100% cotton knit and 100% polyester woven) for their air permeability, thermal resistance and evaporative resistance. The fabrics were then incorporated as sole variable into two models of sports-abaya. The thermal properties of these abayas were evaluated using a female thermal manikin in both standing and walking positions. Comparison was made with the results of a traditional abaya. The research work revealed that polyester woven fabric has a higher air permeability (44.9 mL/cm(2)/s) than cotton knitted fabric (24.1 mL/cm(2)/s). The vapor resistance of polyester fabric was lower than cotton fabric and their thermal resistant did not show any significant difference. Consequently, thermal manikin evaluation showed results favoring sports-abaya containing polyester fabric in both standing and walking positions. Furthermore, the thermal resistant and vapor resistant values of sports-abayas were lower compared with those of the traditional abaya. This leads to the conclusion that the newly designed sports-abaya containing 100% polyester woven fabric provides better thermal comfort than traditional abaya and sports-abaya containing 100% cotton fabric.