Individual and cumulative benefits of making body armour and chemical & biological protective gloves, respirator and overboots from moisture vapour permeable materials

Making chemical & biological protective gloves vapour permeable reduces thermoregulatory strain better than making armour, respirator or overboots permeable

“…With the thermal load maintained across conditions, removal of any of the MVIP items reduced the thermal burden with removing G causing the greatest reduction to thermoregulatory strain. This is in contrast to [ 1 ] where BAL afforded the biggest benefit when removed. This method rather than [ 1 ] offers a better assessment of the contributing burden of protective equipment in human studies.…”

“…This is in contrast to [ 1 ] where BAL afforded the biggest benefit when removed. This method rather than [ 1 ] offers a better assessment of the contributing burden of protective equipment in human studies. We partly accept our hypothesis; thermal strain was reduced most by removing G, not BAL.…”

“…Wearing chemical and biological (CB) protective equipment causes thermoregulatory strain by restricting evaporative cooling. We identified [ 1 ] that a moisture vapour impermeable (MVIP) body armour liner (BAL) imposed a greater thermal burden than MVIP CB gloves (G), overboots (O) or respirator (R). The previous study progressively and cumulatively removed these MVIP items across 5 conditions when wearing a CB protective suit.…”

“…The aims of this study were to quantify the thermal burden imposed by each MVIP item whilst maintaining a high thermal load between conditions to identify the potential benefits if future equipment was made moisture vapour permeable (MVP). A second aim was to determine whether the previous experimental design [ 1 ] influenced the thermal burden imposed by each MVIP item. We hypothesised that removal of a MVIP item would reduce heat strain in this order BAL>G>R>O.…”