Smart clothing for cooling

Abstract

As is well known, everybody can profit from a little bit of cooling in hot environments. This is also the case for athletes. In hot and humid environments, most of the main mechanisms of thermoregulation are rendered ineffective or are not efficient enough anymore to compensate for the heat production during high intensity exercise. Prolonged exposure to too high body temperatures can lead to increased irritability, the loss of concentration, but more importantly lead to the loss of capacity to do precise mental/physical tasks and show faster fatigue and exhaustion. In severe cases it can lead to hyperthermia and other heat related illnesses. This project aims to develop a new cooling garment for rowers to be used during competition or training. The rowers are kept cool using special designed pads incorporated in a shirt (and pants) that are able to transfer heat using conduction. As opposed to its predecessors, the pads designed in this project maximize the contact surface area with the body, providing more cooling at the same amount of volume. The pads are cooled with the help of thermoelectric cooling, a beneficial side effect of this is that in very cold environments the thermoelectric cooling can be reversed to provide heating instead. The whole system is regulated using sensor on the skin, signaling if more or less cooling is needed. Initial user tests done with the prototype show promising results, the subject stating that the feeling of being cool on the entire torso was definitely apparent. Thermal imaging of the pads can back up that when active, the pads indeed cool down noticeably and that the cooling is spread across the whole surface of the pads.