Modelling of Wearable Cooling System

PROJECT SUMMARY
The idea to model a wearable thermal control system has been conducted by researchers on late of
20th century. Although these studies still just being a proof of concept, advances were developed in
a way produce a useful product. Released by Dhama Innovations Pvt. the first useful thermal
control cloth driven to final costumer, is based on a thermoelectric effect to remove heat from
human body. Although most researchers have focused on using thermoelectric effect, but now
driven to not only heat removal but also including heat harvesting (Jo Sung-Eun et al. 2012). The
focus and motivation of this project is gather all advances made in thermal control system and
propose an application for a use on a scenario.
Although the human body has several mechanisms for thermoregulation, vasoconstriction,
sweating, etc., the need to maintain its internal temperature around 37 C causes thermal stress for
individuals living with or exposed daily to hot environments such as firefighters. As quoted by Ken
Parson (2012) despite all forms of self-internal temperature control the human body is extremely
dependent on external conditions, one of the advances of humanity against these factors is the use
of clothing in relation to other animals. Thus the first step was to model the mechanisms of heat and
as the human body interacts with the environment. During the evaluation of models and survey
variables came to math equation described below:
M W =Qsk +Qres =( C+ R+ Esk ) + ( C res + E res )

(1)

where all terms have units of watts per square metre and
M = rate of metabolic energy production
W = rate of mechanical work
Qsk = total rate of heat loss from the skin
Qres = total rate of heat loss through respiration
C = rate of convective heat loss from the skin
R = rate of radiative heat loss from the skin
Esk = rate of total evaporative heat loss from the skin
Cres = rate of convective heat loss from respiration
Eres = rate of evaporative heat loss from respiration
In a way to simplify all calculation of heat transfer, was assumed steady state condition and the
model of heat transfer was adopted as presented on Ken Parsons 2012, a three layered cylindrical
model. Using the equation (1) was calculated the amount of heat generate by the core and loss to
environment. As all results are strongly depend of environmental factors such as amount of solar
radiation, wind, humidity and mechanical work. For the condition adopted, was found an amount of
around 300-350 W of heat required to be removed on a way to granted thermal comfort.
To remove the heat from the body many cooling cycles were evaluated: absorption, adsorption,
Brayton and vapour compressed cycles. After comparison was decided to choose a vapour
compressed cycle once it has a relativity simple thermodynamic system and can be driven by a
variety of power sources (Reinhard Radermacher 2005), also on simulation it showed be able to
remove the amount of heat desired.
The concept of the wearable system can be shown below, Figure 1. The idea is cover the chest with
a wearable garment vest with thermal insulation providing condition for a use of flexible tube to
build a wearable evaporator. Power sources and condenser were concept to be mounted on a
backpack configuration. The thermodynamic cycle is represented on Figure 1.

Figure 1: Conceptual wearable cooling system.

At this moment the research has found some set back as is need perform some experimental test to
determine the amount of power required and decide for power sources. These still going to be the
most crucial factor and a limitation of amount use for this technology, although some progress has
been made in built high density batteries witch could be a future solution for this problem.

REFERENCES
Ernst T. C., Design, Fabrication And Testing Of A Wearable Cooling System, Georgia Institute Of
Technology; February 2005
Ken Parsons, Human Thermal Environments The Effects Of Hot, Moderate, And Cold
Environments On Human Health, Comfort, And Performance, Third Edition, CRC Press 2014
JO SUNG-EUN, et al, Human Body Heat Energy Harvesting Using Flexible Thermoelectric
Generator For Autonomous Microsystems, 16th International Conference on Miniaturized
Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences October 28 - November 1, 2012, Okinawa, Japan
Reinhard Radermacher and Yunho Hwang, Vapor Compression Heat Pumps with Refrigerant
Mixtures, CRC Press 2005
Y. Qi, M.C. McAlpine, "Nanotechnology-enabled flexible and biocompatible energy harvesting",
vol. 3, pp. 1275-1285 (2010)