A soldier’s most important means of preserving life and health are ballistic protection equipment such as a bulletproof jacket or helmet. Ergonomic is one of the important aspects of personal protection equipment which in this case is thermal stress caused by the use of specific equipment. Testing (consists of three primary equipment one being CME’s Climatic Chamber) involves assessment of the Ballistic jacket’s thermal insulation properties to know what extent the jacket impedes the transmission of heat from the human body to its surroundings.

It is very important that ballistic jackets should not only perform protective functions but also should not influence the users’ bodies negatively which generally occurs from both decreased energy loss from the human body and heat transfer disturbances due to the weight and size of the jacket, and the ambient temperature and level of physical effort required by the soldier. It’s difficult to a have a one perfect comfort guideline for all ballistic jackets because the user’s physiology and psychology as well as the external surroundings may differ. However by maintaining thermal balance near perfect ergonomics can be achieved. Environmental factors such as air temperature, radiation mean temperature, water vapour partial pressure and air flow speed; and individual factors such as the energy output related to the intensity of the work performed (otherwise called the metabolic rate), and the transfer of heat through clothes, also called clothing thermal insulation influences thermal balances.

A series of test equipment are used to determine thermal insulation primary among them being Climatic Chamber. CME’s chamber used here offers working temperature range of -20 °C to 95 °C with humidity range of 10%RH to 98% RH while the capacity is 1000 Litres. The tests are performed according to the ISO 15831:2004 standard with sensors measuring air temperature and velocity.