Abstract
The authors measured temperature and humidity inside three kinds of protective clothes for chain saw operators during simulated felling operations in order to obtain the basic data for developing protective clothes which are both physically and thermally comfortable. On thermal environment scales, protective trousers (C and D) were classified as slightly warm in the winter, warm in the spring, and hot to very hot in the summer. On the comfort scale, they were classified as comfortable in the winter, uncomfortable in the spring, and very uncomfortable in the summer. Therefore, it was found that wearing protective trousers was suitable in the winter in Japan, but not suitable for the other seasons from the viewpoint of thermal comfort. It was also found that although chaps (B) were colder than protective trousers in the winter, they provided more warmth than if no protective clothes had been worn. As for the wearing of protective clothes of this kind, the temperature and the humidity inside the cloth were not high in the spring, but very high in the summer. When such protective clothes are worn in the summer, it appears that heat and discomfort resulting from the high temperature and humidity could be ameliorated by loosening stop implements occasionally and improving the ventilation in the protective clothes. An investigation of worker burden showed no clear relation between heat/humidity environment and worker burden resulting from the wearing of these protective clothes.
