Heat Strain in Chemical Protective Coveralls-Are Thermal Sweating Mannequin Tests More Informative than Sweating Hot Plate Tests?

摘要

Four chemical protective coveralls (CPCs) were tested for thermal insulation and evaporative resistance using both sweating hot plate and thermal sweating mannequin procedures. General agreement was found between the two sets of test results. Pearson's correlation analyses were conducted to determine the relationships between the material level (hot plate) measurements and garment level (mannequin) measurements and to compare them for their ability to predict human physiological responses related to thermal stress in the tested chemical protective clothing. The most influential factors for predicting thermal strain were found to be material level evaporative resistance and fabric thickness. Model-controlled sweating mannequin tests were also carried out and compared to human responses. This study showed that, for the selected CPC ensembles with high body coverage, the thermal sweating mannequin did not exceed the sweating hot plate in predicting thermal strain.