Airflow Through a Mesh Dog Harness

Hold a mesh swatch up to the light and its openings are easy to see. Now look at the chest panel on the finished harness. There may be a backing under the mesh, or a padded section that covers part of it. If you're choosing a mesh dog harness for a product line, the question is how much air can pass through the panel the customer will actually receive.

Follow the air through the panel

Mesh can form an open layer on either face of a panel. What sits behind it matters. A chest panel with mesh over a dense backing gives air a different path from one that uses an open knit on both faces. Turn the sample over before judging it from the side shown in the catalogue.

Textile researchers led by Qi Zhang tested four constructions of a knitted spacer fabric for shoe uppers. In their samples, the construction with aligned openings on both faces let the most air through. The sample with mesh on only one face let the least through. Those were footwear fabrics, but they illustrate why a photograph of one face tells you so little about the path through both.

QCOOL's soft padded mesh dog harness listing describes mesh and padding. If you're comparing this style with another padded design, look at the layers where the panel is widest. If there's a lining, ask for a sample that includes it. A loose swatch is useful at the material selection stage. An assembled specimen can show how much air passes through those layers together.

Read the result at the right scale

Air permeability measures how readily air passes through a test specimen. ISO 9237 describes a method for fabrics and covers some made-up textile articles that let air through. For a useful comparison, have the lab record which part of the panel it measured, which layers were included and which face was turned toward the airflow. Keep the method, test area and pressure difference the same for both samples. If the finished panel can't be mounted flat enough for the method, the lab can advise whether a flat specimen made with the same layer stack is suitable. Label the result with the specimen that was actually measured.

A test through one open section gives you a result for that section. Look at how much of the harness is built that way before using that number to describe the product. A small mesh strip beside the buckle and a broad mesh chest panel may use the same fabric and still leave very different areas open.

Airflow through fabric also answers a narrower question than comfort on a dog. Chen and colleagues measured airflow, water vapor transfer and thermal properties separately in their study of spacer fabrics. A bench airflow value describes the tested construction under the lab conditions. If all you have is a swatch report, keep the claim about the swatch. For a chest-panel claim, use a result that covers the layers in that panel.

References

Numerical calculation of air permeability of warp-knitted jacquard spacer shoe-upper materials based on CFD, Zhang et al., AUTEX Research Journal, 2024.

Textiles — Determination of the permeability of fabrics to air, ISO 9237, 1995.

Moisture and Thermal Transport Properties of Different Polyester Warp-Knitted Spacer Fabric for Protective Application, Chen et al., AUTEX Research Journal, 2021.