245

Numerical Simulation of 3D Dynamic Garment Pressure

X. ZHANG, K. W. YEUNG, AND Y. LI
Institute of Textile and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a mechanical model for numerical simulations of 3D dynamic
garment pressure during wear using a finite element method. Based on analyzing the
contact characteristics between the human body and the garment, a mechanical model is
developed based on the theory of dynamic contact mechanics. The garment is regarded as
an elastic shell of geometric nonlinearity and the human body is assumed to be rigid. The
contact between body and garment is modeled as a dynamic sliding interface. A series of
examples is presented to illustrate the simulation results of the computational model using
commercial finite element software: a female human model wearing a set of perfectly
fitting sportswear. The garments have the same style but are made from different
materials: a cotton denim fabric and a knitted nylon fabric. Compared with values of
measured garment pressure reported in the literature, the predicted pressure is close to the
magnitude of
experimental measurements, indicating that the model is able to simulate
garment pressure during wear with reasonable accuracy. The computational model can
simulate and predict the dynamic mechanical behavior of garments during wear, such as
garment deformation, pressure, and internal stresses, without actually producing the
garment.

Modem consumers demand apparel products with su- loose garments ( F > 0 ), where the garment area is
perior multifunctional and comfort performance to sat- larger than the body area. Foundation garments are de-
isfy their physiological and psychological needs. Gar- signed to apply a certain level of pressure on the body
ment fit and pressure comfort have been identified as part concerned when the body is active and at rest.
important attributes. Forces generated during dynamic Perfectly fitting garments have a figure-shaping function
interactions between a garment and the human body but are not designed to apply pressure to the body.
induce pressure sensations. Denton [2] pointed out that Therefore, a perfectly fitting garment only constrains
the discomfort level of clothing pressure was found to be body movement as result of garment pressure, but no
between 60 and 100 g/CM2, depending on the individual pressure is applied when the body rests. Because body
and the part of the body concerned, which is similar to movement can reduce the space allowance, loose gar-
blood pressure in the capillary blood vessels near the ments may also exert pressure on the body at contact
skin surface. If the constricting pressure around the hu- areas. Therefore, the level of garment pressure varies
man body is greater than moderate, blood Howing uphill significantly for different wear situations, depending on
through the veins will be stopped or at least impeded. four factors: design and fit of the garment, shape of the
Ultimately, fluid will be forced out of the veins into the body part, mechanical properties of the underlying tis-
tissues of the lower part of the legs, causing swelling sue, and mechanical properties of the fabrics.
[ 12]. Therefore, a garment’s pressure is a fundamental Most published research on garment pressure has fo-
design criterion, and is affected by its style, fit, and cused on conducting wear trials to measure such pressure
mechanical properties. and the relevant subjective sensations [8-10]. Makabe et
Garment pressure is closely related to the space allow- al. [ 10] measured garment pressure on the covered area
ance between the body and the garment during body at the waist for corsets and waistbands, and conducted a
movement. According to the degree of space allowance sensory test for garment pressure. The results indicated
F, garments can be classified into three types: foundation that pressure at the waist is influenced by the area cov-
garments (F < 0), where the garment area is less than ered, respiration, and the ability of the garment to follow
the body area (such as girdles); perfectly fitting garments body movement. The subjective evaluation of clothing
(F =
0), where the garment area is equal to the body pressure at the waist showed that no sense of discomfort
area (such as tights, socks, and body stockings); and is perceived when the pressure is in the range of 0-15
/&dquo;
246

gf/cm2, negligible or only slight discomfort is perceived pattern to indicate preferable modifications. Details of the
when the pressure is in the range of 15-25 gf/cm2, and model and simulation methodology have not been reported.
extreme discomfort is perceived when the pressure ex- The system seems limited to static pressure distribution and
ceeds 25 gf/cm2. Denton [2] pointed out that garment size suitability without consideration of the dynamic contact
pressure on the body increases with body curvature. The mechanics involved.
body curvature of women at the sides is roughly 3’/2 In this paper, we present a model for numerical simula-
times greater than that at the front, so unwanted pressure tion of dynamic garment pressure during wear. By analyz-
on the sides of the waist is 3’/2 times greater than the ing the contact characteristics between a body and a gar-
desired figure flattening pressure on the front. ment, we develop a mechanical model based on the theory
To optimize the design of a garment in terms of of contact mechanics. We present a series of examples to
functional performance and pressure comfort, we need to illustrate the simulation results of the computational model
study dynamic garment pressure distribution in the de- using the finite element method: a standard female human
sign stage. This is an engineering design application, model wearing a set of perfectly fitting sportswear. The
involving two apsects of development: the need to de- garments have the same style but are made from different
velop a mechanical model that is able to describe the materials: a cotton denim and a nylon knit.
dynamic mechanical interaction between garment and
body with satisfactory accuracy, and the need to develop the Model
a computational methodology to solve the model and
Developing Dynamic
visulize garment pressure. This requires interdisciplinary CHARACTERIZING THE PHYSICAL PROCESS
knowledge in garment design, contact mechanics, bio-
mechanics of the body, and computer technology. Perfectly fitting garments are designed to fit the body
Contact mechanics is the fundamental theory for mod- shape without exerting any specific shaping pressure. Gen-
eling garment pressure, since pressure arises from the erally, the garments are required to be more or less skintight
dynamic contact between a body and a garment. Devel- to accommodate movement comfort of the body. Both a
oping a scientific understanding of contact problems may lower tensile modulus in multidirections and effective elas-
be considered in three stages. In the first stage, contact tic recovery of the fabric are necessary to ensure that the
bodies are restricted to rigid bodies or simple elastic garment does not become loose and buckled on the body
bodies, and only the total contact force and the total parts and to accommodate body movement. Therefore, gar-
frictional force are studied. Newton’s third law and Cou- ment deformation has the mechanical features of material
lomb’s friction law are the major theoretical foundation linearity but geometric nonlinearity.
of this stage. Hertz’s contact theory may be regarded as The garment only constrains body movement as result
a milestone in the second stage. In his study, Hertz of garment pressure, but no pressure is applied when the
assumed that contact bodies can be regarded as elastic body rests. Figure 1 a shows a women wearing a set of
half-spaces with small deformation, and that contacting perfectly fitting sportswear (upper wear and shorts) and
areas are small and elliptical in general. He also assumed moving at a constant speed V~. During wear, mechanical
that the contacting boundaries are frictionless. Local interaction occurs at the contact surface between the
phenomena like stress distributions on static contacting body and the garments. Figure 1 b shows the external
surfaces can be studied. Numerical computation is the forces on an element of the garments: the interactive
third stage for solving the contact problem. Among other contact force q, at the normal direction of the contact

possible methods, the finite element has been the most surface, the friction q f as the garment slips on the sur-
widely used due to its versatility of no restrictions on the face, and the gravity qg on the garment. The external
geometry, material properties, or deformation patterns of forces will be balanced by fabric internal stresses (ten-
contact bodies [ 13]. With the finite element method, the sion, shearing, and bending) and the inertia force q, of
solution of complicated contact problems can be trans- the garment during a dynamic deformation process,
formed into solving algebraic equation systems instead shown in Figure 1 b.
of obtaining a closed-form solution. By analyzing the characteristics of perfectly fitting
There are very limited publications of theoretical inves- garments, we have developed a mechanical model to
tigations of garment pressure during wear. Haruo Niwaya simulate dynamic garment pressure distribution as a fe-
[ 11 reported the development of a basic system to predict male body wears a set of perfectly fitting sportswear and
wearing silhouette, garment pressure, and ease looseness of walks at constant speed V_, which results in an up-down
a garment. Using that system, he studied three-dimensional cycling motion of the body with speed V~., as shown in
distributions of garment pressure and ease looseness on a Figure I a, according to the analysis of sports biomechan-
simple manikin, which was mapped in reverse on a paper ics during human walking [ 16].
 247

FIGURE 1. Mechanical interaction between human body and garments.

MODEL ASSUMPTIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS x, y coordinates shown inFigure 1 a. In this system, the
The model is based on a series of assumptions: ( 1 ) The garments are regarded ~n a domain fl 1. At time t = 0. the
human body is assumed to be rigid. (2) The body always garments and the body occupy domains on and W in
their unreformed configuration, respectively. The body
keeps in contact with the upper wear at the highest point and the garments are all simply connected so that there is
of the shoulder and the waist of the shorts during move-
no interior boundary in any of them, satisfying the
ment. (3) The garments are considered to be a thin elastic phys-
ical constraint of
shell with material linearity and geometric nonlinearity;
the stress in the fabric’s thickness is assumed to be zero.
(4) The contact between the body and the garment is
dynamic coordinated contact because of the contact fea- where Z denotes a null space, indicating that fll and fl2
ture that the magnitude of the contact interface is com-
do not penetrate each other.
parable to the effective surfaces of the body and the From time t 0, the human body moves to occupy a
=

garment [4]. (5) The friction between the body and the new domain ’n 2, contacting the domain ’fl’ of the
garment is neglected. garment at any time t > 0. The boundaries of ’fit ’ and
Figure 2 shows the time-dependent contact system ‘fZ2 are denoted by rut and ‘r2, respectively, consisting
between the body and the garments in a fixed global of three components:
coordinate system x ( x, , x2, x3), corresponding to the z,

where rd denotes a prescribed displacement boundary,

r~ denotes a prescribed load boundary, r denotes the
contact boundary where contact may occur, and U de-
notes the union operator.
’

GOVERNING EQUATIONS

The mechanical behavior of the garments and the body

in the contact system within time domain (0, t) is gov-
erned by three main groups of equations, i.e., motion
equations, constitutive equations, and boundary condi-
FIGURE 2. Global coordinate system of contact system. tions.
248

Motion Equations Displacement boundary condition: According to as-

As long as ’fi ’ fl to2 = 0, the equilibrium equations sumption 2, the garments at the highest point of the
shoulder and the shorts waist have the same movement
remain uncoupled for the body and the garments. Let t
with the body at time t. The displacement boundary
denote time, x a position vector, u(x) the displacement
conditions on these contact points are represented as
field, and a(x) the acceleration field. The motion equa-
follows:
tion of the garments at time t is

Force boundary condition: Gravity exerted on a gar-

ment and on the human body is expressed as
and the motion equation of the rigid human body at time
t is

where g is gravity acceleration.

Contact conditions: Suppose that two boundary points
x’ (on the garment) and x’‘ (on the body) are in contact
where ’O’¡ix) is the Cauchy stress component that gives with each other at time t. The component of contact force
the actual traction on an imaginary plane at a point ’q&dquo;~ in the direction ’N&dquo;; can be expressed as
within the garments, q g, (x) is the ith component of the
body force vector ’qg(x) of object n (n 1, 2), p is the
=

mass density of object n, which is assumed constant, and

ai(x) is the ith component of the acceleration vector of a

Two boundary points and their associated normal vector
material particle within object n. N&dquo;, and tangential vectors N&dquo;~, N&dquo;3 are shown in
Figure 3. For frictionless contact between the human
Constitutive Equations body and the garments, denoting the contact force at x&dquo;
Constitutive equations are material-dependent. For lin- by g&dquo;~., , then by Newton’s third law, we have
early elastic materials, the stress-strain relation may be
given by the generalized Hooke’s law [ 12], i.e.,
The mechanical contact condition as a constraint on the
normal contact force is

where Cijk/ are material constants, Sij is a component

This means the interactive force is exerted on the gar-
of the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor that is
ment or on the body against its normal direction of the
related to the Cauchy stress component aij(x), and
ekr is a component of a Green-Lagrange strain tensor
contact boundary points.
to describe the deformation of geometric nonlinear-
ity, which consists of linear and nonlinear compo-
nents :

Boundary Conditions
Initial condition: Human movement consists of two
components: horizontal motion with speed Vz in the
xi-direction and up-down motion at speed V~. in the
X3-direction, which are presented as

FIGURE 3. Two boundary points in contact

and associated boundary unit vectors.
 249

NUMERICAL SOLUTION PROCEDURES SIMULATION CONDITIONS

The solution of these equations is complicated by
In the simulation, we assume that the female model is
dynamic balance on the space and the time domains, walking at a constant speed V;, which results in a cycling
geometric nonlinearity of garment deformation, and con- motion of the body in the direction with speed V, . Vz
tact nonlinearity due to unknown contacting boundaries
is defined as 20 cm/s and V, as 50 cm/s. and the time
prior to the solution of the problem. Therefore, we solve period of motion is 0.05 second. Thus. the movement
the model numerically with the finite element method in
the space domain and the finite difference method in the
amplitude of the human body in the v-direction is 2.5 cm
in the motion period. The time step size is 2.55E-5
time domain using an explicit, nonlinear finite element
second for the nylon garments and 2.84E-5 for the denim
analysis program [3]. garments, which can be adjusted according to the need
The basic approaches to solving the contact problem for computing stability. The numerical computation is
with the finite element method may be classified as
follows: first, formulation with the principle of virtual
implemented using commercial finite element soft-
ware [3].
work using the updated Lagrangian formulation, which
provides a basis for finite element discretization of non-
linear deformation; second, finite element discretization Results and Discussion
using the Belytschko-Lin-Tsay shell element for large
displacements and large rotations, which determines the PRESSURE DISTRIBUTIONS
strain-displacement matrix in the element: third, contact
search using a master-slave algorithm to search for po- Figure 4 shows the pressure distributions viewed from
the front and back of the body when wearing the cotton
tential contacting nodes and determine their locations;
denim garments. The scale in the figures is presented in
fourth, contact constraint using the penalty constraint
units of kgf/m’‘, which can be transformed into units of
method to calculate the unknown contact force in the
contact-sliding interface between the body and the gar- gf/cm2 by multiplying by 10-’. Meanwhile, the negative
ments ; and fifth, an explicit solution procedure for nu- pressure value indicates the pressure on the body induced
merical computation of the dynamic contact model. by the garment. The positive pressure value indicates that
the garment does not contact the body at a specific point
so as to force the garment to move toward the skin. From
’

Applying the Model the pressure contour plot, we can see that the pressure is
GENERATING FINITE ELEMENT MODELS FOR BODY distributed non-uniformly over different parts of the
AND GARMENT body. Most of the areas covered by the clothing have
In this paper, we develop a 3D finite element model of relatively low pressures in the range of 0 to 6 gf/cm2.
a female human body using a commercially available High-pressure zones occur in the areas of the waist, hips.
and upper chest with pressures in the range of 12 to 25
virtual human model. The finite element models of the
human body and the garments are shown in Figure I,
gf/CM2.
where the number of elements for the human body is
Figure 5 shows the pressure distributions when wear-
19,938-3239 for the upper wear and 2669 for the
ing the knitted nylon garments, which tend to be similar
to those when wearing the denim garment. However, the
shorts. Two sets of garments, which are made from a
cotton denim and a nylon knit but in the same style and
low-pressure zones are much greater and the high-pres-
sure zones are much smaller. High-pressure zones are
size, are used in the numerical simulation. The tensile observed in the waist and upper chest with pressure
modulus is meaured by the Instron tensile tester, and the
around 3 gf/cm’‘. Comparing the pressure contour plots,
Poison’s ratio is estimated from measurements of Kawa-
it is evident that the pressure induced on the body by the
bata bi-tensile testing. The properties o1~ the fabrics are
denim garments is significantly higher than that by the
shown in Table I.
knitted garments, suggesting that fiber and fabric me-
chanical properties affect garment pressure distribution
and comfort perception.
.

TABLE I. Mechanical parameters of the fabrics.

To illustrate the dynamic pressure distribution dunlg
the deformation process, we take five nodes (A. B, C, D.
G) on the garments as examples to record the pressure
changes. As shown in Figures 4 and 5, node A is at the
point of the shoulder belt of the upper wear, B is at the
top part of the upper wear, G is at the upper middle point
250

FIGURE 4. Pressure distribution

of cotton denim garments.

(a) Front (b) Back

FIGURE 5. Pressure distribution of knitted

nylon garments.

(a) Front (b) Back

of the upper wear, C is at the side of the waist, and D is the upper wear changes positive values with the
with
at the back of the waist. denim garment and does not change at all with the nylon
garment. For the denim garment, a maximum pressure of
Figure 6 shows the pressure changes at the five points,
(a) for the denim garments and (b) for the nylon gar- 30.6 gf/cm‘’ is predicted at node A, 28.3 gf/CM2 at node
ments. For the two sets of garments, the pressures at D, 13.9 gf/CM2 at node C, and 6.8 gf/CM2 at node B. For
points A, B, C, and D increase with movement. The the nylon garment, the maximum pressure is 1.7 gf/CM2
pressure at node A increases unsteadily like waves, in- at node D and 1.36 gf/CM2 at node A. Because the

dicating the contact between the body and the upper wear pressure on the back of the waist with the denim garment
is unstable. The pressure at node G on the middle part of exceeds the discomfort threshold of 25 gf/CM2 identified

FIGURE 6. Change of garment pressure.

 251

by Makabe et al. [ 10], discomfort is expected to be butions are directly related to the effective stress dis-
perceived., tributions in the garments.

DYNAMIC DEFORMATION OF GARMENTS

STRESS DISTRIBUTION IN GARMENTS
Dynamic stretch in multi-directions is essential for a
Figures 7 and 8 represent the distributions of effec- perfectly fitting garment to accommodate body move-
tive stress in the denim and nylon garments, respec- ment. Figure 9 shows the distribution of the garment’s

tively. Effective stress is a scalar integrating all the displacement in the ;-direction (vertical to the~chest), (a)
internal stress components, including tension, shear- for the denim garment and (b) for the nylon garment.
ing, and bending, which are shown as positive values When the body moves upwand, the areas of the garments
in the figures. The effective stresses in the denim on the upper breast and the back of the hip have large

garment vary from 0 to 110 gf/CM2, while those in the displacements in the c-direction. indicating that there is
nylon garment are in the range of 0 to 12 gf/cm‘’. little space allowance between the body parts and the
Obviously, the stresses are significantly higher in the garments. The contour plots of the displacement are
denim garment than in the nylon garment, indicating nearly the same for the two sets of garments since they
that fiber and fabric constructions have significant are the same style.

impacts on the stress distributions in the garments

during wear. Compared with the contour plots of the
garment pressure in Figures 4 and 5, the distributions
of the effective stress have similar patterns in Figures
7 and 8, suggesting that the garment pressure distri-

(a) Denim garments (b) Nylon garments

FIGURE 9. Distribution of displacement in ;:-direction.

(a) Front (b) Back Conclusions

We have developed a model for numerical simulation
FIGURE 7. Distribution of effective stress in denim garments. of dynamic garment pressure based on the theory of
contact mechanics. The garment is assumed to be a thin
elastic shell with geometric nonlinearity, and the human
body is rigid. The contact between the body and the
garment is modeled as a dynamic sliding interface. Based
on the mechanical model, we can compute three-dimen-
sional distributions of garment pressure, stress, and de-
formation and visualize them in color maps using com-
mercial finite element software. A series of examples
illustrates the simulation results of the computational
model: a standard female human model wearing a set of
good fitting sportswear. The garments have the same
style but are made from different materials-a cotton
(a) Front (b) Back denim and a nylon knit. Compared with measured gar-
ment pressures reported in the literature, the predicted
FIGURE 8. Distribution of effective stress in nylon garments. pressure is close to the magnitude of experimental mea-
252

surements, indicating that the model is able to simulate 6. Kikuchi, N., and Oden, J. T., "Contact Problems in Elas-

garment pressure during wear with reasonable accuracy. ticity: A Study of Variational Inequalities and Finite Ele-
ment Methods," SIAM Publication, Philadelphia, PA,
The computational model can simulate and predict the
1988.
dynamic mechanical behavior of garments during wear, 7. Li, Y., Zhang, X., and Yeung, K. W., A 3D Bio-Mechan-
such as garment deformation, pressure, and stresses,
ical Model for Numerical Simulation of Dynamic Mechan-
without actually producing the garment.
ical Interactions of Bra and Breast during Wear, Sen’i
This model has a limitation due to the assumption of Gakkaishi (submitted for publication).
the human body as rigid. The dynamic mechanical inter- 8. Makabe, H., Momota, H., Mitsuno, T., and Ueda, K., A
actions between the body and the garment cannot be Study of Clothing Pressure Developed by the Brassiere, J.
analyzed in detail. To overcome this limitation, we have (9), 416-423 (1991a).
Jpn. Res. Assoc. Textile End-uses 32
developed a series of biomechanical models to investi- 9. Makabe, H., Momota, H., Mitsuno, T., and Ueda, K., A
gate the dynamic interactions between the human body Study of Clothing Pressure Developed by the Girdle, J.
and garments in various wear situations such as bras and (9), 424-438 (1991b).
Jpn. Res. Assoc. Textile End-uses 32
tight-fitting trousers [7, 14-1 S]. 10. Makabe, H., Momota, H., Mitsuno, T., and Ueda, K.,
Effect of Covered Area at the Waist on Clothing Pressure,
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Sen-iGakkaishi 49(10), 513-521 (1993).
11. Niwaya, H., Evaluation Technology of Clothing Comfort-
We would like to thank the Hong Kong Polytechnic ableness, J. Natl. Inst. Mater. Chem. Res. 7 (5), 269-282
University for funding this research through the YW-35 (1999).
project titled &dquo;Development of Engineering Design Sys- 12. Pratt, J., and West, G., "Pressure Garments: A Manual on
tem for Prediction of Woven Fabric Bagging.&dquo; Their Design and Fabrication," Bath Press, U.K., 1995.
13. Xu, X., Guo, Y. M., and Shen, Y. X., "Non-Linear Finite
Element and Program Design," ZheJiang University Press,
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