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Design and performance of personal cooling garments based on three-layer laminates

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Abstract

Personal cooling systems are mainly based on cold air or liquids circulating through a tubing system. They are weighty, bulky and depend on an external power source. In contrast, the laminate-based technology presented here offers new flexible and light weight cooling garments integrated into textiles. It is based on a three-layer composite assembled from two waterproof, but water vapor permeable membranes and a hydrophilic fabric in between. Water absorbed in the fabric will be evaporated by the body temperature resulting in cooling energy. The laminate’s high adaptiveness makes it possible to produce cooling garments even for difficult anatomic topologies. The determined cooling energy of the laminate depends mainly on the environmental conditions (temperature, relative humidity, wind): heat flux at standard climatic conditions (20°C, 65% R.H., wind 5 km/h) has measured 423.2 ± 52.6 W/m2, water vapor transmission resistance, R et, 10.83 ± 0.38 m2 Pa/W and thermal resistance, R ct, 0.010 ± 0.002 m2 K/W. Thermal conductivity, k, changed from 0.048 ± 0.003 (dry) to 0.244 ± 0.018 W/m K (water added). The maximum fall in skin temperature, ∆T max, under the laminate was 5.7 ± 1.2°C, taken from a 12 subject study with a thigh cooling garment during treadmill walking (23°C, 50% R.H., no wind) and a significant linear correlation (R = 0.85, P = 0.01) between body mass index and time to reach 67% of ∆T max could be determined.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mrs. B. Selm, Ms. C. Becker and Mr. B. Wuest for their technical input and assistance of the experiments. We also acknowledge the efforts of Mrs. S. Noller from the Swiss Textile School, Zurich, for her support in manufacturing the thigh cooling garments. We thank Beth Padden for carefully reviewing the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, 9014, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    M. Rothmaier & M. Weder

  2. Department of Neurology, Rehabilitation Centre, 7317, Valens, Switzerland

    A. Meyer-Heim & J. Kesselring

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  1. M. Rothmaier
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  2. M. Weder
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  3. A. Meyer-Heim
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  4. J. Kesselring
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Correspondence to M. Rothmaier.

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Rothmaier, M., Weder, M., Meyer-Heim, A. et al. Design and performance of personal cooling garments based on three-layer laminates. Med Biol Eng Comput 46, 825–832 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-008-0363-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-008-0363-6

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