Abstract
Recently, tight wears to compress human-body by well stretched fabrics have been applied to the competitive-sports and medical treatments. Those clothes are consisted of the woven and knitted fabric materials. The fabric materials have specific properties to be elastic in large deformation region. Moreover, the woven fabric shows anisotropic characteristics that depend on the direction of fiber families. Therefore, in this study, we propose a pressure prediction method for sportswears. For the experimental study, triathlon-wears were applied to biomechanical observation and tensile loading tests. First, to obtain stretch of the wear, geometrical size of human body in cycling pedaling was observed by high-speed camera. Next, in material tests, uniaxial loading test by fabric specimen of triathlon wear were conducted to obtain the relationships between uniaxial tensile stretch and stress. Besides, we assessed stiffness reduction of the materials on the assumption of use in the competition. Finally, we compared estimated value to measured value generated by the wear and showed the effectiveness of the method.
