A Cooling Vest for Working Comfortably in a Moderately Hot Environment.

Abstract

To alleviate worker's thermal discomfort in a moderately hot environment, a new cooling vest was designed and proposed in this paper. To investigate the effect of the cooling vest and to collect the knowledge for the design of comfortable cooling vest, subjective experiments were conducted. Two kinds of cooling vests, the new one and the commercially available one, were used for comparison. The new cooling vest had more insulation and its surface temperature was higher than the commercially available one. Experiments were performed in the climatic chamber where operative temperature was controlled at 30.2°C and relative humidity was at 37% under still air. In addition, experiment without cooling vest was carried out as a control condition. The results obtained in these experiments were as follow: 1) By wearing both types of cooling vest, the whole body thermal sensation was closer to the neutral conditions than those without cooling vest. This effect was estimated to be equal to the 5.7°C decrement of operative temperature. The subjects felt more comfortable with the cooling vest than without it. They felt more thermally acceptable than that without cooling vest. Wearing the cooling vest was useful to decrease the sweating sensation. 2) The local discomfort was observed when the local thermal sensation was "cool"~"cold" with the cooling vest.3) The new cooling vest kept the skin temperature at chest at about 32.6°C. On the other hand, by wearing the commercially available one, it lowered to about 31.1°C. By wearing the new cooling vest, there was a tendency that local thermal sensation vote was higher and local comfort sensation vote was more comfortable than those of the condition wearing the commercially available one. It is important for the design of a comfortable cooling garment to prevent over-cool down from the body.

Alleviation of Heat Strain by Cooling Different Body Areas during Red Pepper Harvest Work at WBGT 33℃

“…The trunk is more sensitive to cold than extremities because the trunk has more cold spots 22) . The back of neck is known as an advantageous site for heat removal because of the proximity of large blood vessels to the skin in this area 23) .…”

“…Portable AVS of LCS are too heavy because workers would have to carry the pump and battery on their backs. Cooling systems using a frozen gel pack does not restrict worker's movements 22) . Lastly, the price of a cooling system using frozen gel packs is much cheaper than a cooling system using circulated air or water.…”

Meta-analysis of the effects of microclimate cooling systems on human performance under thermal stressful environments: Potential applications to occupational workers

“…One potential reason is that the cooling system with the larger coverage area on the body is regarded as the more effective cooling strategy (Gao et al, 2010) that would remove sufficient heat and extend performance time. Additionally, the trunk is more sensitive to cold than the extremities because the trunk has more cold spots (Nishihara et al, 2002) than the other regional areas. ACG-Cs exhibit better results for performance enhancement than the other MCGs, followed byLCGs, HBCG-AL, ACG-Ns, and PCMCGs.…”

“…Less attention has been focused toward their application in industrial settings. Nishihara et al (2002) proposed a newly designed cooling vest for improving the thermal comfort of workers. Choi et al (2008) investigated the effects of different types of MCSs on the alleviation of heat strain of farmers.…”

Physiological and Comfort Effects of a Commercial “Cooling Cap” Worn Under Protective Helmets

“…(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15) The maximum heat absorption of a typical ice vest is 1940 kj. The max heat absorption of the CP was ∼ 80.24 kj.…”