The Relative Importance of Temperature, Humidity and Fabric Performance to Other Heat Stress Factors. J.P. Zeigler, DuPont Nonwovens, Richmond, VA Heat stress is a common risk.
Indoor environments can exceed action limits anytime and anyplace.
Outdoor temperatures and humidity exceed threshold limits in most cities sometime each year. The significance of some factors, such as temperature and humidity, are well defined. Less well understood and often misrepresented are other factors, such as garment heat transport, geography or time of the year. We have completed a study that analyzes the relative contributions of various factors in heat stress. This study includes a sensitivity analyses which describes the relative impact of small changes in each of these factors.