A Comparison of Techniques Used to Assess the Thermal Burden of Protective Clothing
SourceThe majority of test methods available to assess the thermal burden imposed by protective clothing on a subject are used in isolation with little in the way of correlation between them reported. This paper directly compares some of the data obtained on a limited number of protective clothing systems from a range of tests including the Control Dish, Togmeter, two variants of the Skin Model, both Sweating and Thermal Manikins and, most importantly, human subjects. Correlations drawn between the methods show that even the simplest methods give a means of assessing the potential physiological burden of a protective clothing system worn under selected environmental conditions and work rates. The actual temperature profiles of subjects are compared to those predicted by a mathematical model using laboratory data and are shown to be in good agreement.