The Research Status and Development of Personal Cooling Systems

Personal cooling systems (PCSs) have been commonly used to relieve the risk of heat strain when exposed to hot environments. This review introduces PCSs on cooling principle, classification and test methods. Then, predicting the development trend of PCSs. According to different cooling medium, PCSs are classified into three types: air cooling systems, liquid cooling systems and phase change cooling systems, introducing the working principle, advantages and disadvantages respectively. In addition, the characteristics of three testing methods of PCSs (i.e., mathematical modeling, manikin testing and human trial) are summarized, and manikin testing includes three operation conditions: constant skin temperature mode, constant heat flux mode and thermoregulatory model control mode. Furthermore, the development trend of PCSs in features, standardize and accurate test as well as evaluation system are predicted.