Prediction of the Physiological Response of Humans Wearing Protective Clothing Using a Thermophysiological Human Simulator

Abstract

Most standards and devices for determining clothing properties ignore the physiological state of the wearer and are inadequate to evaluate the transient thermal properties of clothing ensembles. This study evaluated the physiological burden of different types of protective clothing and environmental conditions using the recently developed single-sector thermo-physiological human simulator and compared its performance with a thermal cylinder (without the physiological control model) and with an advanced physiological model (with a simple clothing model). A single-sector physiological simulator developed to simulate the dynamic thermal and perceptual behavior of humans over a wide range of environmental and personal conditions was successfully validated in this study through tests with clothed individuals exposed to hot and cold conditions. In comparative tests on water vapor permeable and impermeable clothing samples, the simulator provided a much more complete picture of actual clothing performance, for example, in terms of moisture retention within the clothing and the additional cooling due to the “heat pipe” effect in impermeable clothing.