Abstract
Immersion suits are lifesaving appliances (LSA) designed to protect the wearer if they become accidently immersed in cold water by reducing the cold shock response and delaying the onset of hypothermia. Immersion suits are certified to both national and international standards; some of which require the thermal protective properties to be tested using humans or thermal manikins. The ethical nature of testing with humans has been questioned [1] due to the physically grueling nature of these tests, thus testing with manikins may be preferential. However, previous work has shown that discrepancies exist between thermal manikins and humans that could result in immersion suit selection that would benefit the former more than the latter who would ultimately use it [2]. This study investigated the thermoregulatory responses of humans and compared them to a thermal manikin while wearing immersion ensembles with insulation distributed in various configurations hypothesized to be beneficial to humans and manikins.
Highlights
Immersion suits are lifesaving appliances (LSA) designed to protect the wearer if they become accidently immersed in cold water by reducing the cold shock response and delaying the onset of hypothermia
The immersion ensembles consisted of standardized underclothing, an outer waterproof shell, and a custom-made closed cell neoprene inner liner with insulation distributed in three configurations: “Control” - insulation distributed evenly around the limbs and torso; “Human Beneficial” (HB) - insulation concentrated around the torso compared to the limbs; and “Manikin Beneficial” (MB) - insulation concentrated around the limbs compared to the torso
For the humans, across all ensembles, there were no significant differences in the mean (SD) change in TSK (Control: -4.5[0.6] °C; HB: -4.5[1.0] °C; MB: -4.6[0.9] °C), mean skin heat loss (MSHL) at the end of the immersions (Control: 95.5[10.2] W·m-2; HB: 101.9[8.2] W·m-2; MB: 102.0[8.8] W·m-2), change in TGI (Control: -0.1[0.4] °C; HB: -0.2[0.4] °C; MB: -0.3[0.3] °C), and VO2 at the end of the immersion (Control: 515.7[79.5] mL·min-1; HB: 538.9[77.3] mL·min1; MB: 565.3[101.2] mL·min-1)
Summary
Immersion suits are lifesaving appliances (LSA) designed to protect the wearer if they become accidently immersed in cold water by reducing the cold shock response and delaying the onset of hypothermia. Immersion suits are certified to both national and international standards; some of which require the thermal protective properties to be tested using humans or thermal manikins. Previous work has shown that discrepancies exist between thermal manikins and humans that could result in immersion suit selection that would benefit the former more than the latter who would use it [2]. This study investigated the thermoregulatory responses of humans and compared them to a thermal manikin while wearing immersion ensembles with insulation distributed in various configurations hypothesized to be beneficial to humans and manikins
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