HanesBrands | Project Sleep

Daniel Hanes, Jonathan Carpenter, Trey Gordo

Our team was tasked with developing a sleep promoting garment for Hanesbrands. Sleep is an incredibly broad and subjective matter, so initially we had to narrow down our scope and determine what we wanted to target. We ultimately decided to focus on temperature and overheating while sleeping. We ultimately decided to develop a garment intended to keep the user cool, dry and asleep for longer without interruption.

Over the course of this project we researched fibers, fabrics and finishes that could be used for that purpose. We also used benchmark products from both Hanesbrands and other companies to determine which fabrics and finishes would be optimal for staying cool, dry and comfortable. To assess these qualities we performed a series of tests to measure air permeability and moisture management, moisture vapor transmission rate and more.

After testing, results showed that knitted cotton and lyocell would be the best combination for these measurables and for cost efficiency. After determining the blend that would be used, we manufactured three different blend combinations of those two fibers (50/50, 67/33 and 33/67). For each fiber blend combination, we tried out three knit structures (links-links knit, mesh knit and single jersey knit) to develop nine samples in total. Air permeability and moisture management testing displayed results that suggested 50/50 mesh and 50/50 links-links were the best fit for our garment.

With our fabrics narrowed down we wanted to apply a temperature adaptive evaporative cooling chemical finish to the fabrics for increased cooling and wickability. Two finishes were applied to smaller scale samples and subsequently tested and validated.

Our final prototype sleep garment is made up of a lyocell/cotton blend in both link and mesh knit structures with a temperature adaptive finish applied.