Excessive exposure to heat stress can cause a host of heat-related illnesses. For laborers, job specific work demands and protective garments greatly increase the risk of succumbing to the effects of heat stress. Microclimate cooling has been used to control heat stress exposure where administrative or engineering controls are not adequate. This study tested the performance of four personal cooling vests for use with insulated protective clothing (gas extraction coveralls) in warm-humid (35 ° C, 50% relative humidity) and hot-dry (40°C, 30% relative humidity) conditions. On 10 separate occasions, 5 male volunteers walked on a treadmill to elicit a target metabolic rate of 300 watts, for 120 minutes, while wearing a (a) water cooled vest, (b) air cooled vest, (c) frozen polymer vest (FP) (d) liquid CO2 cooling (LCO2) vest, or (e) no cooling (NC). A three-way mixed effects ANOVA was used to assess the results and a Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference multiple comparison test was used to identify where significant differences occurred ( < 0.05). The air, water, and FP systems produced significantly lower heat storage rates compared to NC. To the extent that the gas extraction coverall is worn in an environment between 30°C and 45°C and the rate of work is moderate, the FP, air and water vest were shown to manage heat storage well, reducing storage rate by about 48%, 56% and 65% respectively.

This research is part of a project that aims to create a simulation workflow to design adaptive facades to not only reduce the energy demand of buildings and provide a good level of indoor comfort, but also to mitigate the urban heat island effect. The anthropogenic climate change results in a steady increase of hot days, tropical nights and heavy rainfall, affecting the quality of human comfort, especially in urban areas not only in hot regions of the world but also in Central Europe. Vertical greening systems are often a first-choice mitigation strategy to im- prove the deteriorating situation. By combining the use of natural resources like rainwater and solar radiation, the greening evaporates water and provides natural cooling. This paper deals with the efficiency and feasibility of vertical greening systems towards a relief in heat stress by sim- ulating different constructions under local circumstances of three climate zones, focusing on the night-time. To carry out the simulations with microclimate simulation tool ENVI-met, an urban apartment complex was designed and provided with different kinds of vertical greening to in- vestigate the various positive effects resulting from the green façade. As a shading device, the greened walls showed a significant decrease of wall surface temperatures of up to 18K. However, restricted transpiration fluxes obstruct exploiting the full potential of evaporative cooling, espe- cially during night-time.