Thermal conditions in freezing chambers and prediction of the thermophysiological responses of workers.
Int J Biometeorol
; 59(11): 1623-32, 2015 Nov.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-25691118
ABSTRACT
The present work is dedicated to the assessment of the cold thermal strain of human beings working within freezing chambers. To obtain the present results, both field measurements and a numerical procedure based on a modified version of the Stolwijk thermoregulation model were used. Eighteen freezing chambers were considered. A wide range of physical parameters of the cold stores, the workers clothing insulation, and the working and recovering periods were observed. The combination of these environmental and individual parameters lead to different levels of thermal stress, which were grouped under three categories. Some good practices were observed in the field evaluations, namely situations with appropriate level of clothing protection and limited duration of exposure to cold avoiding unacceptable level of hypothermia. However, the clothing ensembles normally used by the workers do not provide the minimum required insulation, which suggests the possibility of the whole body cooling for levels higher than admissible. The numerical predictions corroborate the main conclusions of the field survey. The results obtained with both methodologies clearly show that, for the low temperature of the freezing chambers, the clothing insulation is insufficient, the exposure periods are too long, and the recovering periods are inadequate. Thus, high levels of physiological strain can indeed be reached by human beings under such working environments.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Body Temperature Regulation
/
Freezing
/
Models, Biological
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Int J Biometeorol
Year:
2015
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Portugal