Toray, the Japanese textile company, has inaugurated an advanced weather simulator at its Fibers & Textiles Research Laboratories in the city of Seta. To test the comfort of garments, the Technorama GIII – as the facility is called – uses “sensitivity engineering” to go beyond heat, cold and humidity and simulate the very feel of fabric. Three chambers allow the company's testers to pass quickly between different environments – from wintry mountaintop to summertime mass transit – and gauge the effects on materials. The chambers offer wind speeds of up to 67 mph, rainfall of up to 200 mm per hour, temperatures of -30°C to 60°C, humidity of 20 to 80 percent and solar radiation of up to 1.16 kW per square meter. The chambers also have motion simulators (treadmills, bikes, ergometers, etc.), infrared imaging, motion capture and physiological trackers (myoelectric meters, sweat meters, clothing pressure gauges, etc.).

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