Thermal and humid environment improvement of the protective clothing for medical use with a portable cooling device: Analysis of air supply parameters

COVID-19 has caused a huge impact on people’s daily life and has made great damage on national economy. All the epidemic situation not only require the improvement of medical science, but also the corresponding auxiliary research field, e.g. the improve of protective clothing for medical use (MUPC). Developing a new kind of MUPC with portable cooling devices to improve medical workers’ thermal comfort and protection performance of MUPC is imminent. In this paper, an integrated MUPC with a portable vortex tube cooling device was studied with experimental method. In a phytotron, a manikin wearing the MUPC was experimentally studied in terms of the influence of environment temperature and cool air supply conditions. On the basis of experiments, the MUPC inside air temperature and relative humidity, skin temperature of human body was studied with simulation method. Overall thermal sensation vote (TSV) and local TSV of human body were calculated, based on simulation results, to evaluate human thermal sensation. The results showed that, first, 50 L/min cool air flowrate with 18–20 °C supply temperature can create a good MUPC inside thermal sensation environment, for both head supply and body supply conditions. Both body supply condition and head supply condition cannot create a uniform MUPC inside thermal sensation environment. Second, MUPC inside air relative humidity is around or lower than 60% for most body parts, except for air supply position and body parts that air is difficult to reach. Thirdly, with cool air supplied into MUPC, a micro-positive pressure environment can be obtained, and the protection performance of MUPC can be improved.