Evaluation of Commercial Cooling Systems for Minimising Heat Strain while Wearing CBRNE PPE

Industry has promoted a variety of cooling devices used for long-term wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE) with various claims but no validation of effectiveness to address wearer heat stress. Current cooling system designs are sold and used with no determination of effectiveness. If the cooling systems don’t lower core body temperature they may put the user in more danger, thinking they have increased operational time, while their core body temperature still rises. PPE end users need a means for determining the effectiveness of current or emerging cooling technologies.

This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of commercial cooling systems in reducing the rise of the individual wearer’s core temperature and other physiological measures of heat strain. The methods developed will account for specific cooling system features that discriminate the impact of the cooling system on end user functionality while wearing various levels of CBRNE PPE.