MRI: Acquisition of a High Heat Compatible System for Interdisciplinary Research and Education on Human Thermal Exposure and Safety in Hot Climates

该奖项支持购买为极端高温条件下的室内和室外研究定制的热人体模型。这种先进的仪器可以测量人体接受多少热量，并模拟体温调节系统在不同情况下的反应。使用该仪器将避免人类暴露在极端高温下的危险，同时测量热量如何影响人类健康和表现。这些测量可以帮助个人和组织找到更好的方法来应对日益普遍和严重的炎热天气。更具体地说，这项研究的好处可能包括减少热病和死亡，改善社会福祉和生产力，改善城市规划，减少建筑物空调所需的能源使用。为了推进这些主题，人体模型将与亚利桑那州立大学开发的最先进的移动气象站配对。这些组合仪器将用于同时表征当地环境及其对人体热舒适、核心和皮肤温度反应以及出汗的影响。这些过程将在不同的环境中进行测量（例如，沙漠路径，旧的移动房屋等），并允许测试传统和新的冷却策略。这项研究将由来自工程、物理科学、建筑、时尚、公共卫生、营养和运动科学的不同群体的学生和教师共同完成。新的热人体模型将使多样化和代表性不足的学生群体接触到新的跨学科STEM研究，从而促进这些领域的参与。随着最近仪器的进步和制造商要求的定制修改，获得的热人体模型系统将是世界上第一个易于移动，与高温兼容，并用于进行多地点室外和室内测量的系统。这样的实验将产生模拟人体体温调节反应的先进信息，目前从模拟、人体试验或当前的热人体模型中无法获得。该仪器将用于1)开发新的实验方法和建模方法，以量化35个人体区域的蒸发、传导、对流和辐射人体热暴露；2)评估和改进各种气候类型和个人背景下的室内/室外热暴露和生理模型和指数。该人体模型还将用于加速以人类为中心的适应极端高温的广泛发展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports the purchase of a thermal manikin custom-built for indoor and outdoor research studies in extreme heat conditions. This advanced instrument measures how much heat a human body receives and mimics the thermoregulatory system’s response in different situations. Use of this instrument will avoid the dangers of exposing humans to extreme heat while measuring how heat impacts human health and performance. Such measurements can help find better ways for individuals and organizations to cope with increasingly common and severely hot weather. More specifically, the benefits of this research may include fewer heat illnesses and deaths, improved societal well-being and productivity, improved urban planning, and reduced energy use required for air conditioning of buildings. To advance these topics, the manikin will be paired with a state-of-the-art mobile weather station developed at Arizona State University. These combined instruments will be used to simultaneously characterize the local environment and its impact on human thermal comfort, core and skin temperature response, and sweating. These processes will be measured in various settings (e.g., desert paths, old mobile homes, etc.) and allow testing of traditional and new cooling strategies. The research will be collaboratively performed by a diverse group of students and faculty from engineering, physical sciences, architecture, fashion, public health, nutrition, and sports sciences. The new thermal manikin will expose diverse and underrepresented student populations to new, interdisciplinary STEM research, thus promoting the participation in these fields. With recent instrumentation advancements and custom modifications requested of the manufacturer, the acquired thermal manikin system will be the first in the world to be easily moveable, compatible with high heat, and utilized to conduct multi-site outdoor and indoor measurements. Such experimentation will produce advanced information on the mimicked human thermoregulatory response presently unavailable from simulations, human trials, or current thermal manikins. The instrument will be used to 1) develop novel experimental methods and modeling approaches to quantify evaporative, conductive, convective, and radiative human heat exposure on 35 human body-zones and 2) to evaluate and improve indoor/outdoor thermal exposure and physiologic models and indices under oppressive heat across climate types and personal contexts. The manikin will also be used to accelerate development of a broad range of human-centric adaptations for coping with extreme heat.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.