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Workers are vulnerable to heat stress when they perform tasks in hot environments. Personal cooling systems (PCSs) are designed to reduce heat strain. A cooling vest with ventilation fans is a type of PCS that can blow air around the body to facilitate convective and evaporative cooling.

This study aims to evaluate the performance of a ventilation unit for a tailor-made cooling vest designed to protect construction workers from heat stress. The performance of this newly designed ventilation unit (Unit B) was compared with that of the ventilation unit used in a commercially available cooling vest (Unit A).

The designed ventilation unit consists of a pair of ventilation fans and a portable battery pack. A hot wire anemometer was used to measure the air flow rate of the fan. The air flow rate and work duration of different ventilation units were compared. The sweating manikin test was conducted to …