PPE HEAT STRESS CALCULATOR

 

Product Overview

Both military and civilian responders need a quick way to determine acceptable stay time while wearing PPE, to avoid excessive heat stress that can threaten their ability to function as well as their health and safety. Traditional approaches to determining acceptable stay time are limited by insufficient accuracy and a tendency to "err on the safe side." Such conservative estimates may require a responder to prematurely cease work efforts and remove the PPE. At the same time, care must be taken to avoid an overly aggressive approach that overestimates stay time and could threaten health or safety. An optimal approach would be in the form of a user-friendly product that provides an accurate, risk-balanced estimate of acceptable stay time.

HeatCommander™ has been developed as a solution to the problem.
Four key elements of the HSC are as follows:

• Operation on a personal digital assistant (PDA) for portability;
• Robust yet straightforward algorithms for predicting heat stress for various combinations of (1) individual characteristics, (2) PPE worn, (3) activity, and (4) surrounding environment;
• Determination of risk levels for various stay times along with maximum acceptable stay time; and
• A user-friendly interface with simple input screens and built-in help to guide choices.

The application provides an estimate of acceptable stay time for a specific situation defined by (1) the characteristics of an individual wearing PPE, (2) the PPE or other clothing that is worn, (3) the intensity and duration of the activity or task that is being performed, and (4) the prevailing environmental conditions. The acceptable stay time for a given worker and activity is estimated from the standpoints of avoiding heat exhaustion, dehydration and physical exhaustion.

All emergency response workers, both military and civilian, share the problem of heat stress. Due to the extreme danger from heat injury, which has caused numerous deaths in athletes, workers and soldiers, conservative work practices and limits have been developed to control the risk. However, such limits often severely reduce the productivity of workers, to the point that requisite training and critical missions cannot be accomplished. Consequently, the limits often are ignored, and workers continue to work until they suffer heat exhaustion collapse or fatal heat stroke. The more accurate predictions that are possible from this application will allow users to work longer when necessary and, thus, extend stay times to help complete missions without unduly sacrificing safety.