TY - JOUR
TI - Investigation on performance of three personal cooling systems in mitigating heat strain by means of thermal manikin
AU - Ren Chong-Guang
AU - Zhang Cheng-Jiao
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2017
VL - 21
IS - 4
SP - 1789
EP - 1795
PT - Article
AB - The objective of current study was to examine the effectiveness of three cooling strategies (i. e., electric air fan, evaporative cooling vest, and liquid cooling vest) in mitigating body heat strain in heat wave conditions by means of a Newton-type thermal manikin. A human thermoregulatory model was used to simulate human physiological responses while using the three cooling strategies. Two environmental conditions were selected to simulate heatwave conditions, i. e., 36 °C, 33% relative humidity (hot-dry), 40 °C, 27% relative humidity (extremely hotdry). A metabolic rate of 1.2 MET was selected to simulate resting person or person doing light housework. It was found that the electric air fan had cooling benefit in both environments. In addition, the evaporative cooling vest and liquid cooling vest showed similar effectiveness in mitigating body heat strain in both hot-dry or extremely hot-dry environments. Thus the evaporative cooling vest and liquid cooling vest were recommended under heatwave conditions.