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Heat stress in chemical protective clothing: porosity and vapour resistance

journal contribution
posted on 2011-05-19, 15:36 authored by George HavenithGeorge Havenith, Emiel A. den Hartog, Svein Martini
Heat strain in chemical protective clothing is an important factor in industrial and military practice. Various improvements to the clothing to alleviate strain while maintaining protection have been attempted. More recently, selectively permeable membranes have been introduced to improve protection, but questions are raised regarding their effect on heat strain. In this paper the use of selectively permeable membranes with low vapour resistance was compared to textile based outer layers with similar ensemble vapour resistance, and for textile based outer layers the effect of increasing air permeability was investigated. When comparing ensembles with a textile versus a membrane outer layer that have similar heat and vapour resistances measured for the sum of fabric samples, a higher heat strain is observed in the membrane ensemble, as in actual wear the air permeability of the textile version improves ventilation and allows better cooling by sweat evaporation. For garments with identical thickness and static dry heat resistance, but differing levels of air permeability, a strong correlation of microclimate ventilation due to wind and movement with air permeability was observed. This was reflected in lower values of core and skin temperatures and heart rate for garments with higher air permeability. For heart rate and core temperature the two lowest and the two highest air permeabilities formed two distinct groups, but they did not differ within these groups. Based on protection requirements it is concluded that air permeability increases can reduce heat strain levels allowing optimisation of chemical protective clothing.

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Citation

HAVENITH, G., DEN HARTOG, E. and MARTINI, S., 2011. Heat stress in chemical protective clothing: porosity and vapour resistance. Ergonomics, 54 (5), pp.497-507.

Publisher

© Taylor & Francis

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2011

Notes

This article is Closed Access until May 2012. This is an electronic version of an article published in Ergonomics [© 2011 Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2011.558638

ISSN

0014-0139;1366-5847

Language

  • en

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