ABSTRACT
Work clothing has a major contributing role to the workers’ physiological response. It complicates the emission of body heat and causes physiological reactions through the increase of sweating, heart rate, and heat cramps, frequently impeding the worker’s performance (Beshir 1994). Physiological changes and seasonal acclimation can lead to a thermal effect if clothing does not properly match with the working environment. Working conditions also may be stressful due to incorrect or insufficient clothing, and for high metabolic rate of the workers. The effect of air temperature (T
a °C) and humidity is
mainly reflected in skin temperature (T sk °C) and in the
clothing fabrics (Woodcock 1962). Higher humidity also causes excessive thermal stress more than in the dry conditions (Boisvert et al. 1993; Candas et al. 1979). Sweat rate increases occur more with the humidity in clothing with higher insulation, and it can lead to an increase in T
sk.
Thus, increasing concern has been growing from the concerned professionals about undesirable exposure to working clothing. Kenney et al. (1987) demonstrated workers’ physiological limits in varying thermal environments. They illustrated the effects of moisture absorption in increased thermal load integrating the coefficients of properties of heat exchange, Lotens (1993) derived a clothing model that handles most of the physical phenomenon. Crockford (1994) illustrated especial garments, which can reflect 40% of incoming radiation, and can reduce the convection loss by 25% if the clothing has 20%
