The Physiological Responses of Material-improved Working Clothes for Construction Site Worker

Abstract : In this paper, experiments to develop working clothesand evaluated, including the current and material-improved working clothesin relation to physiological functionality measurement. Experiments were conducted on sub-jects after wearing working clothesin an climate chamber, and the thermo-physiological response, such as human bodytemperature, micro-climate within the clothes, blood pressure, heart rate were measured. In this manner, the phys-iological functionality of improved working clotheswas compared with that of current working clothesand evaluated. Thesummary of obtained results is as follows: For physiological functionality evaluation through material-improved workingclothes, P working clothesshowed significantly lower rectal temperature than C working clothes. For mean skin tem-perature, P's skin temperature was significantly higher than C's in the second half of the experiment. P working clothes'stemperature around the thighs in Micro climate was significantly lower than that of the C working clothes. Also, humiditywithin the clothesshowed similar trends. During the exercise period, C working clothesshowed higher blood pressurethan P, but P showed higher heart rates than C. Also, the oxygen uptake amount was higher in C than P during the exer-cise period, it explains that the energy consumption amount of P working clotheswas smaller than that of C workingclothes. Of the subjective evaluation, for temperature sensation, workers wearing P working clothesfelt cooler. Forhumidity, C working clothesshowed more humidity. For comfort, P working clotheswere better, and for sense of fatigue,workers felt less tired wearing P working clothes. From results above, we can see that physiological functionality improvedin the material-improved working clothesin the working clothesfor construction site workers. The improvement of workingclothes through functionality improvements not only will provide personal pleasantness to constriction site workers, but willalso generate efficiency and productivity improvements at construction sites. All in all, the continuous study of functionalityimprovements in working clothestaking into consideration the human body's physiological responses is required.Key words:construction field, material-improved working clothes, physiological responses