Abstract
The Tekscan® pressure pad was adopted to study the pressure-relief property of spacer fabric used as a mattress, where pressure peak, average pressure and contacting area were recorded directly. In order to better analyze the pressure-relief property of spacer fabric, average gradient integral and six derivative indices were featured from a pressure map. Testing results showed that spacer fabric effectively improved the pressure concentration effect by improving contacting area and decreasing pressure peak. Comparisons of the pressure-relief property of spacer fabric demonstrated that different grade weight of the seated volunteer influenced the contacting area, average pressure and average gradient integral. Correlations between objective pressure indices and subjective pressure comfort level indicated that both pressure peak and pressure comfort level had significant relations with the three basic pressure indices and six derivative indices, and they showed higher correlations under light weight, medium weight and heavy weight. It was also found that pressure peak was a good index to effectively evaluate the pressure-relief property of spacer fabrics, and both relieving average pressure per weight and relieving average gradient integral per weight are two effective pressure indices to evaluate the pressure-relief level. It is helpful in designing the structure of spacer fabrics to improve pressure comfort.
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