Predictive modelling of compression garments for elastic fabric and the effects of pressure sensor thickness

Abstract

This research has been conducted to develop mathematical models to predict the compression pressure and strain value of fabric based on Laplace’s law. The experiment was designed in accordance with the strain values of stretched fabric in order to make prediction of compression pressure. The fabrics covered on rigid cylindrical models and thigh part of human body were compared and measured for pressure values using compression tester. The results revealed that pressure values on rigid body were overestimated which may result from the cause of sensor thickness. Later, correction factor was included in calculations in order to get rid of the overestimated pressure. It was also found that predicted pressures were close to the ones being measured on rigid body by compression tester after multiplying with the correction factor, while soft tissue surface had no influential effect on pressure perturbation and pressure-measured values were close to the predicted pressure values obtained from modelling.

Keywords:

• Compression garment
• pressure
• elastic
• tight-fitting
• Laplace’s law

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic within the SGS project no. 21246 on the Technical University of Liberec.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.