Study on Individual Differences in Thermal Stress Using Black Box Models

Transient human thermal response characteristics are investigated using two US Army experimental datasets as part of an on-going study to model thermal risk for the warfighter. This paper reports two black box models developed as initial steps to understand the effect of individual differences on transient thermal response and risk. In the first black box model, two transient climatic parameters and six individual characteristics are used as inputs to predict 12 thermal responses including two psychophysical outputs (temperature sensation magnitude, Tsens, and comfort vote, Disc) using experimental data from 35 subjects. For the second black box model, additional individual characteristics are used to model Tcore, Tskin, and the time limit for the individual tolerance to heat stress with heavy clothing, using data from 22 subjects. The insights developed using these component models will be used to develop a decision making framework to predict thermal risk for the warfighter.