Design of a Motion-Oriented Size System for Optimizing Professional Clothing and Personal Protective Equipment

The fit, comfort and the fashionable look of professional clothing as  well as personal protective equipment (PPE) gain in importance. In addition to the protection and functional properties, the working and protective clothing demands perfect fit for optimal freedom of movement. The balancing act between freedom of movement, functionality and fashion-oriented fit of different target groups offers new complex challenges to manufacturer of professional clothing. Anthropometric data are used for clothing design, PPE, workstations and man-machine interfaces. Therefore two different measuring systems are used: size charts and ergonomic standards. Size charts are the base for clothing industry, however size charts cannot cover the functional requirements of professional clothing and PPE. The body measurements during exercising movements (standing, sitting, kneeling, etc.) deviate significantly from the measurements of size charts, which are measured in standard standing position. The motion-related variability of body dimensions is partly reflected in ergonomic standards. The ergonomic standards describe different modes of motion, e.g. arm range, without any size references, only percentiles type. A measurement standard which considers size reference as well as function-oriented motion of the body at work, is currently not available.
In the project "functional dimension“ the motion-related variability of body measurements are investigated and converted into a new size system. The following work steps are in the presented project: analysis and classification of work-related postures (standing, sitting, etc.), posture capturing by using 3D-scanner technology,identification of changes in the motion-dependent body shape and analysis of the extrema, statistical evaluation of ergonomic dimensions, development of ergonomic and motion-related size systems.
The aim of the project is to re-evaluate fundamentally the motioninduced changes of the body, to identify the respective characteristic and to derive new defined functional dimensions. The new motionoriented size system allows fitting and ergonomically based design of function-oriented, comfortable and fashionable professional clothing and PPE in future. The challenge consists of the systematic derivation of new functional dimensions as well as their conversion into optimized clothing products in addition to reproducible detection of the ROM (range of motion).