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Laboratory testing of UV transmission through fabrics may underestimate protection
Author(s) -
Ravishankar J.,
Diffey B.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
photodermatology, photoimmunology and photomedicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.736
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1600-0781
pISSN - 0905-4383
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0781.1997.tb00231.x
Subject(s) - transmission (telecommunications) , materials science , computer science , telecommunications
Laboratory testing of the ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) provided by fabrics normally utilizes a collimated source of UV radiation and either a broadband sensor or spectroradiometer to detect the radiation, both unattenuated and after passing through the fabric sample held in a flat tensionless state. We report the results of an in vivo study of UV transmission through various T‐shirts at several sites on the trunk and arms of a life‐size mannequin irradiated with diffuse radiation and using UV sensitive polymer films as the sensor. We found a variation in UPF by a factor of two or more at different anatomical sites for a given T‐shirt, with lower UPFs seen at sites where the fabric is stretched; and found that at every site and for each T‐shirt this in vivo UPF was higher than the conventional in vitro UPF determined using collimated radiation.