Development of Cooling Garment for Extremely Hot Environment Using a Peltier Device and its Comfort Properties

This paper reports on a prototype cooling garment applying a cooling module. The cooling module was composed of a Peltier device, a cold sink, a heat sink and two fans. A constant box was used to evaluate the cooling effect of the module. Two cooling modules were attached on each side of the garment. The wear trial was conducted using 10 male subjects in an environmental chamber maintained at $30{\pm}0.5^{\circ}C$, $50{\pm}5%$RH. Subjective sensations of thermal, humidity, and comfort were surveyed. Statistical package SPSS12.0 was used for the t-test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The results showed that most effective cooling module decreased the temperature of the constant temperature box by $-4.9^{\circ}C$. The micro-temperature of the cooling garment with a Peltier device was lower than the control garment during the exercise. In particular, the chest skin temperature was $1.5^{\circ}C$ lower with the cooling garment than the control. The maximum temperature difference was $-2.57^{\circ}C$ on the sides of the $1^{st}$ layer. Subjective thermal sensation from wear trials of the Peltier device attached garment was lower than the control garment. Subjects felt more comfortable with the cooling garment in almost all the periods.

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