Abstract:

In order to investigate the effect of personal cooling clothing on human body thermal comfort, the influence of ventilation clothing used small fans on the evaporative resistance and thermal comfort via sweating thermal manikin and human wear trials. It was found that when the ventilation rate was 12 l/s the evaporative resistance of the clothing was reduced by 58%. The local skin temperatures and the mean skin temperature were much lower when the fans were opened and the subjects exercised in an environment of 25oC, 50%RH, especially the chest and the calf skin temperatures. Significant difference of the local and mean skin temperatures of the male subjects were observed between the fans opened and closed conditions (p<0.05). After exercising 20 mins and resting 20 mins, the mean skin temperature were reduced by 2.4 oC and 0.9 oC respectively, compared with the fans closed condition. The ventilation clothing with the small fans could be used as a prototype for the improvement of thermal comfort.

Key words: ventilation clothing, evaporative resistance, thermal comfort, skin temperature