Kansas State University Institute for Environmental Research Elizabeth McCullough, Professor and Co-Director 64 Seaton Hall Manhattan, KS 66506 Phone: 785-532-2284 FAX: 785-532-6642 Email: lizm@ksu.edu

Facilities at the KSU Institute for Environmental Research

The Institute for Environmental Research (IER) in the College of Engineering is an interdisciplinary research center for the study of the thermal interaction of people and their environment. It is one of the few university facilities in the world with controlled climatic chambers and supporting instrumentation necessary to study the factors that affect human comfort – including the heat transfer properties of materials and clothing systems. IER is internationally recognized as a leading laboratory in this field.

Specifically, IER has

• seven environmental chambers with computer control
• one air quality evaluation chamber (currently used for nanoparticle research)
• instruments to measure the thermal and evaporative properties of fabric systems (e.g., sweating hot plate, dynamic moisture permeation cell, upright cup apparatus, inverted cup)
• one segmented, articulated thermal manikin for measuring the dynamic and static thermal resistance of clothing systems
• one thermal manikin for measuring the insulation value of sleeping bags; this manikin can also be dressed in a sweating skin to measure the evaporative resistance of clothing
• one thermal manikin for measuring environmental variables that affect the thermal comfort of people in vehicles (cars, airplanes, tractor cabs)
• instrumentation for measuring the physiological responses of human subjects (EKG machine, portable heart rate monitors, skin temperature sensors, rectal temperature sensors, treadmill, etc.)