Application of a coupled heat and water transport model in the skin for evaluation of protective clothing microclimate Available to Purchase

The risk of the exposition of people to the high temperature and radiative heat flux is common in many professions and motor sports. Usually these conditions are very rare and occur for a short period of time during the emergency situation. Usually, for the majority of time, normal or routine (elevated) conditions are prevailing. Therefore, the multilayer protective garments, which in case of emergency events are designed to guard people from thermal stresses and injuries (burns), have to ensure the wearing comfort during the regular activities. Important parameters used in the assessment of the protective clothing microclimate are the temperature and relative humidity close to the skin surface and in the air gap which is naturally present between the inner fabric surface and the skin. The paper presents a model for the coupled heat and water transport in the skin. The model accounts for bioheat transfer with blood perfusion and metabolic heat generation in a tissue. Moreover, the water transport (epidermal water loss, EWL) through the thin stratum corneum (SC) between the body interior and the surroundings as well as presence of a sweat at the skin surface are included. The skin model was subsequently combined with the previously developed heat and moisture transfer model in the air gap and layers of the protective garment. The whole model was then applied to study the multilayer protective clothing microclimate under normal and routine (elevated) thermal loads. The clothing heating resulted in increase of the air gap and skin surface temperature and decrease of the relative humidity in the air gap. This triggers the rise in the EWL flux.