A novel personal cooling system (PCS) incorporated with phase change materials (PCMs) and ventilation fans

Abstract

Heat stress has been considered as a common risk to impair work performance, which may lead to heat illnesses, work incidents, or even fatality. Over the past few decades, various types of personal cooling systems (PCSs) have been developed to mitigate heat strain, e.g., cooling vests with ice packs or phase change material (PCM) packs or frozen gel strips, garments with liquid cooling systems and garments with forced air ventilation. In this study, a novel personal cooling system (PCS) incorporated with both PCMs and ventilation fans was developed and its cooling efficiency was evaluated on a sweating manikin.