Ferrino Auxetica technology

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

1: Improve thermal and ergonomic comfort on hiking backpacks

2: Increase user well-being by reducing the metabolic cost of physical activity.

WORK TEAM

A three-year partnership between the Ferrino R&D team, the Comfort Lab at Città Studi Biella, and the Sport Technology Lab in Bologna (University of Bologna).

LABORATORY TESTS

1: Implementation of laboratory tests in the product development process to evaluate the validity of the proposed solutions with objective data.

2: The backpack's performance was tested in a climatic chamber under controlled environmental and physical effort conditions to evaluate a series of physiological parameters, which provide evidence of the metabolic cost of physical activity: temperature, humidity, sweating.

CLIMATIC CHAMBER TEST
The environmental conditions were as follows: air temperature (Ta) 23.4 ± 0.4°C and relative humidity (RHa) 47.4 ± 0.8.

The tests were conducted on 10 subjects, 5 men and 5 women. Backpacks were loaded with 20% of the tester's body weight, and they were subjected to physical activity for 50 minutes.

Thermal comfort assessment: temperature and humidity detected by sensors placed on the tester's body and backpack.

Surface temperature of the tester and backpack at the end of the test via thermographic investigation.

Weight of the tester and backpack before and after the activity to evaluate the sweat lost and residual.

Questionnaire administered to testers to collect subjective sensations of temperature and humidity.

THE SOLUTION
MAKING THE SHOULDER STRAPS OF THE NEW HIKEMASTER BACKPACK LINE OUT OF AUXETIC MATERIAL

Auxetic materials are characterized by a negative Poisson's ratio: when subjected to traction they tend to expand.

Making shoulder straps with these materials allows you to obtain the following advantages:

Increased perspiration
Increased thermal comfort
Distribute the load more evenly
+ 10% evaporation compared to a traditional shoulder strap
Greater efficiency in expelling heat