Affiliations: [a]
Department of Design, Dr. Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University, Kothrud, Pune, India
| [b]
Production and Industrial Engineering Department, PEC, Chandigarh, India
Correspondence:
[*]
Address for correspondence: Dr. Md Sarfaraz Alam, Assistant Professor, Department of Design, Dr. Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University, Kothrud, Pune – 411038, India. Tel.: +91 6200668397; E-mail: sarfaraz8665@gmail.com.
Abstract: BACKGROUND:Hot and humid indoor environment of the kitchen affects worker performance. The Indian Railway’s pantry car culinary is one of them that cooks food for the on-board passengers, which could be bothered by the hot indoor climate. OBJECTIVE:The current study aimed to identify the indoor working environment of the railway “pantry car” using heat stress indices such as “Universal Thermal Climate Index-UTCI,” “Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature-WBGT,” “Discomfort Index-DI,” “Tropical Summer Index-TSI,” “Heat Index-HI,” and Heart Rate-HR with clothing insulation. METHODS: The study was performed in 2018 (August-summer season) to collect field survey data on 6 railway pantry cars. Measurements were carried out during peak cooking times such as morning “7 : 00 am”, day “11 : 30 am”, evening “4 : 00 pm,” and night “6 : 30 pm”. This study’s descriptive and Pearson’s correlation analysis was accomplished using SPSS version 2016 software. RESULTS:The analysis results revealed that the average values were for UTCI (37.77±5.26°C), WBGT (30.42±2.28°C), DI (30.05±2.70°C), TSI (33.21±2.90°C), HI (48.53±4.86°C), correspondingly. During analysis, the strongest correlation association was observed between “TSI and DI” (r = 0.985, p < 0.000) and WBGT and TSI (r = 0.958, p < 0.000). A “significant correlation” was found between UTCI and HI (r = 0.637, p < 0.05). While no signification correlation was found between “heat stress indices and physiological parameters (p > 0.05)”. CONCLUSION:In this study, all the heat stress index limit values showed highly harsh working conditions inside the pantry car, which created unfavorable circumstances for the culinarians. Inappropriate “ventilation design” could be a reason for discomfort in the railway pantry car.
