Heat Stress Caused by Wearing Different Types of CW Protective Garment

Abstract : One means of reducing the heat stress caused by wearing protective clothing is to eliminate the air layers between the skin and layers of the ensemble. In order to evaluate the effectieness of this concept, four unacclimated males wearing either the current Canadian Forces (CF) chemical protective overgarment, and individually tailored skintight protective garment or CF combat uniform participated in a series of experiments conducted at 40 C and low relative humidity. Each was instrumented with a rectal thermistor, donned the clothing and walked on a treadmill at 5 km hr and 2% grade for 90 min, until his rectal temperature reached 39 C or he requested to withdraw from the experiment. The results of this preliminary investigation indicate that there appears to be some advantage to wearing the skintight clothing under these conditions.