A Characteristic Study on Thermal Stress and Countermeasures for Human Body in Marine Exposure Working Space

Abstract

The marine structure using under severe oceanic environment should be designed with careful consideration of keeping the exposed working place to be comfort. In case of severe conditions beyond the criterion of thermal environment, some countermeasures for thermal compensation, such as a working space with windbreakers or sunshades, need to be taken adequately. The designer of an offshore structure should understand the dependence of the thermal stress of human body on the thermal environmental factors such as operative temperature, metabolic heat and clothes.In order to grasp the relation between the heat stress of human body and the thermal environmental factors, a formula for heat stress is established with a view of calculating the quantity of heat storage using the heat balance model of human body. This formula that is consisted of temperature, wind velocity, metabolic heat and clothes heat resistance, can be defined to be the critical working hours to lay down the limit time when a variation of body foundation temperature exceeds the fixed threshold value. The necessity of several kinds of compensated equipment for the protection of workers against severe exposure environment is evaluated by use of present judgement method.