Personal cooling garments are systems used to improve the thermal comfort of the workers who work in hot environments. Phase change cool vest is a type of cooling garment which absorbs the body's excessive heat thorough the phase change phenomena as latent heat of fusion. Significant results have been reported in approaching the thermal condition of the body to neutral state by using the cooling garments. This study tries to simulate the three-part system of body-garment-environment through the finite element method and solve the problem of heat exchange between these three parts with the help of thermal analysis of ANSYS software. Strength point of this study is about the ability of the model in considering the physiological responses of the body to negative side effects of the cooling garments (such as high weight). Results of the modeling showed that wearing a cool vest can cause effective reduction in heat storage of the body, so decrease the mean sin temperature by 2.77° C. Also it was showed that the negative effects of the cooing vest on the body can decrease its efficiency by 26%. The effect of the temperature of the environment, in which the cooling vest is used, can have significanteffect on its cooling period. Using the cooling vest under protective clothing was modeled in this study too. Also it was shown that isolating the PCM packets can increase the cooling efficiency of the cooling vest from 20 to 34%. A series of experimental tests was conducted to evaluate the validity of the model and a good agreement was shown between the modeling and experimental results. Key words: personal cooling systems, thermal comfort, body's heat exchange, phase change material
