An Overview of Water Resistant and Wind Resistant Clothing

It is seen that the human body can lose temperature in various method. Especially in freezing weather and air-blowing situation, the temperature of the human body can be lost very quickly. In cold weather, a person riding a bicycle can lose temperature very quickly. Under these circumstances, the person should cover his entire body with clothing; otherwise, his life may be at risk. The clothing design should be such that the warm air of the body surface cannot pass through the opening areas of clothing or fabric due to forced convection. That means the dress must be wind resistant. To manufacture this types of clothing, the fabrics should be of low air permeability property. These types of fabrics usually are very compactly woven or coated or laminated fabrics. In such cases, knitted fabrics are not so good because their air permeability is very high. If the knitted sweater is used in those situations, it should be covered with clothing made of very compactly woven fabric or laminated fabric.

When clothing is worn in cold or wet weather, due to damp air, temperature lost from the human body by the conduction method rapidly. If air blowing starts in cold and wet weather, heat loss from the human body increases more rapidly. Usually, water-resistant clothing is also wind resistant. Different types of wind and water-resistant clothes are available in the market. Cotton ventile is water and wind-resistant fabric. It is made of very compactly woven cotton fibres, hence becoming more compact; thus, water molecules cannot pass through the fabric. This type of fabric is used for making raincoat.

Coated fabrics like polyurethane-coated nylon, neoprene coated nylon, or PVC coated polyester fabric could be used for making water and wind-resistant cloths. But during sewing the cloths, the needle holes must seal with water-resistant tape; otherwise, the performance of the cloth may be destroyed by licking water molecules through the needle hole in the seam areas.

Water molecules in vapour form can pass through the cotton ventile fabric, hence during hard work, wearing cotton ventile cloths, the possibility of sweating is reduced. But in the case of clothing made from coated fabric, sweating will occur because vapour cannot pass through the coated fabric. Moreover, PVC and neoprene coated fabrics are not damaged by abrasion. Still, the polyurethane-coated fabric is damaged by abrasion, especially in very cold weather, suitability of polyurethane coated fabric and clothing is very poor.

As water and wind-resistant cloth, Gortex is the latest cloth available in the market. Gortex clothing is made from multilayer fabrics, of which the central layer is finished with PTFE coated. The outer and inner layer fabrics are of different construction and weight. The speciality of this cloth is that the central coated layer fabric contains numerous very fine micro holes, which may be up to 109 holes per square inch. These micro holes allow water molecules to pass through in vapour form; hence seating by condensation of water molecules per cent in the warm air between the body surface and clothing can be avoided. On the other hand, water molecules cannot pass through those micro holes; thus, Gortex is more effective and comfortable than water and wind-resistant clothing.

In the end, it should be remembered that, whatever the type of fabric used for making water and wind-resistant clothing, the design of the dress is essential because the creation of the clothing can reduce the water and wind-resistant performance of the clothing.