Personal cooling in nuclear power stations. Final report

Technical Report · Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 1983

OSTI ID:6139586

Kamon, E

Two approaches to personal, non-restrictive cooling of workers exposed to high-temperature work environments in nuclear power plants were evaluated. Both approaches involved a cooling garment designed to be worn under the protective clothing donned in penetration into radiation areas. One garmet was developed to cool by direct body contact with small packets of frozen water enclosed in the pockets of a shirt. The other garmets cooled by circulating a cooled liquid through capillaries in a vest and head cap (System A) or a vest (System B). Testing was conducted in a laboratory simulation of high ambient temperature (55/sup 0/C) and moderate metabolic heat production (200 to 300 kcal/h). Exposure time without cooling (control) was 52 minutes (Group 1) for the workloads demanding 200 kcal/h (48 minutes for Group 2). A long garmet with 7.2 kg of frozen water (LFWG) increased mean exposure time over the control by 242% (163% for the same garmet with 6.2 kg of frozen water). A short-version garmet with 3.8 kg of frozen water (SFWG) increased the stay time by 115%. The circulating-liquid garmets increased mean exposure time 35% (System A) and 27% (System B) over the control. In field observation, the LFWG with 6.2 kg of frozen water improved stay time by 125%.

• Research Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park (USA). Noll Lab. for Human Performance Research
• OSTI ID: 6139586
• Report Number(s): EPRI-NP-2868; ON: DE83901973
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
PERSONNEL
PROTECTIVE CLOTHING
HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING
PERFORMANCE TESTING
COOLING
HEAT TRANSFER
HUMAN FACTORS
REACTOR MAINTENANCE
CLOTHING
ENERGY TRANSFER
ENGINEERING
MAINTENANCE
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
POWER PLANTS
TESTING
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
210000* - Nuclear Power Plants