The Study of Footwear Thermal Insulation Using Thermography and the Finite Volume Method

The paper concerned the issue of ergonomics and thermal comfort of footwear. The presented work was an attempt to apply selected modeling CAD software and the finite volume method for analysis of heat transfer through footwear between the shoes' user and his surroundings. Based on the actual two selected sport shoes, three-dimensional models have been designed, taking into account their different geometry and raw material composition. The models used simplifications related to the internal construction (in microscale) of the specific parts of the footwear (sole, insole, shank, lining and tongue). The main purpose of the work was to determine the influence of the simplifications used on the accuracy of simulation as a tool to predict thermal insulation of real shoes determined by means of thermal imaging camera. The simulations results were in correlation with the experiment and showed that applied software can be an effective tool in studying the thermophysiological properties of footwear.