Influence of air velocity and heat acclimation on human skin wettedness and sweating efficiency

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Abstract
Before and after heat acclimation, 4 resting male subjects were exposed to humid heat that caused levels of skin wetness ranging from 50-100%. The physical experimental conditions were chosen so that the same skin wetness was attained with modification of only the ambient water vapor pressure at 2 wind speeds (0.6 and 0.9 m/s). The esophageal temperature (Tes), mean skin temperature (.hivin.Tsk), sweating rate (.ovrhdot.msw) and dripping sweat rate (.hivin.mdr) were recorded; the amounts of local drippage in the same thermal conditions before and after acclimation were also determined. The relationship between the evaporative efficiency of sweating (.eta.sw) and skin wetness (w) is reported, as is the influence of the subjects'' acclimation to humid heat on adjustments of skin wetness. The effects of the air velocity on the coefficient of evaporation and on sweating efficiency are discussed. Beneficial increases in evaporation were achievable by increasing skin wetness only when there was a consistent drippage, which differed from 1 body area to another and from 1 subject to another. The relation of drift in body temperature to skin wetness changed with the acclimation of the subjects.