環境温37℃における水分蒸発機能をもつ冷却ベストの効果

Abstract

We have been conducting a series of studies on simple and practical cooling methods for hot environments. A vest with moisture evaporation function was designed by incorporating a highly absorbent batting material and a moisture-permeable and waterproof fabric as the cover fabric. The authors have named this vest as the “cooling vest”. In this study, the wearing experiment was performed in an experimental environment at 37℃, 40%RH (WBGT 30℃), which also corresponds to the body temperature. The subjects included eight females in their 20s. During the experiment, they wore T-shirts (T) or the cooling vest on a T-shirt (TV), or the blouson with two small fans on the cooling vest with a T-shirt (TVA). Following parameters were measured through the wearing experiments: sweating rate (Sw), clothing temperature (Tcl) and humidity (Hcl), oral temperature (tco), skin temperature (ts), and heart rate (HR) and subjective evaluation. When wearing the sample TVA, the Tcl and ts significantly decreased at the chest region. The Sw for sample T significantly increased over time. The Sw for the sample TV also tended to increase, but that for the sample TVA significantly decreased over time. The scores of thermal sensation and subjective sweating state for sample TVA significantly decreased. The subjective evaluation suggests that sample TVA is comfortable to wear and feels cool. These results can be attributed to the release of water vapor from the cooling vest and enhanced evaporation caused due to the fans. Therefore, it can be concluded that using the cooling vest along with a blouson installed with fans, the loss of latent heat can be increased without causing excessive sweating.