Clothing & Textiles Centre
Purpose
- to act as objective, independent consultants to the manufacturing and distribution industries, to government departments, and consumer organisations;
- to organise specialist educational programmes in association with industry sectors, and government departments;
- to bring together expertise from several disciplines (clothing and textile science, physiology, chemistry, marketing, toxicology, microbiology, injury prevention, sports science) for collaborative research.
Background
The Centre was established in 1989 to provide a consultancy service and to carry out contract research. Initially underwritten by the Dunedin City Council the Centre has been self-funded since 1992. A wide variety of contract research and consultancy is carried out by the Centre.
Scope of the work
Research and consultancy is carried out, for example, in the following areas:
- compliance of existing and new protective clothing and equipment with requirements of the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 and/or New Zealand and international standards;
- analysis of effects of protective clothing use in injury prevention strategies;
- anthropometry, apparel sizing and design; effect of environmental, and clothing and material variables on human performance;
- structural/mechanical properties and sensory evaluation of clothing and materials for development and/or performance; thermal resistance testing;
- assistance with product development; literature searches using international data bases such as World Textile Abstracts, Web of Knowledge, Medline.