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Lightweight, long endurance body cooling for Fire Fighters
(Grant Agreement no.262673)

The project goal is to create a body cooling system for firefighters.
Which is lighter in weight and has greater endurance than existing commercially available systems, while offering a significant cooling power and keeping a low price.

When called the firefighters they can be exposed to high levels of heat stress, which results in decreased physical performance and even a heart-related illness

The cooling system must meet the needs of the firefighter, which are:
Low mass (<4,5 Kg);
Effective cooling ̴ 300 W to keep core temperature rise to 1 °C during a typical live fire training exercise;
Low bulk (<1 litre) and with good ergonomics (i.e. does not prevent the user from completing tasks);
Meets relevant standards, in particular EN 469;
Affordable (< €500).

The existing Personal Cooling Systems (PCS) are divided into three categories:
Phase change systems;
Air ventilated vests;
Liquid circulating vests.

From the state of the art, there are a number of limitations, high mass, low endurance or low cooling power and for vapour compression units, very high unit cost. There are technical obstacles that we need to overcome to provide a light-weight, long endurance, affordable, effective personal cooling system for fire fighters (and other occupations) use.
No commercially available system meets the needs of firefighters.

PROJECT CONCEPT
Our idea is to develop a personal cooling system that by-pass the barrier to sweat evaporation created by the personal protective clothing and allow sweating from a biomimetic surface outside of the clothing

The StayCool personal cooling system consists of three sub-systems:
Heat pipe garment to collect heat from the wearer
Evaporative Heat exchanger to pass heat to the envirorment
System controller to optimise heat flow and maximise battery life

MAIN STEPS OF THE RESEARCH
1. Selection of materials of wicking and evaporation from complex surfaces, to understand the interaction between retention of fluid by a wick and evaporation from that wick;
2. Develop and manufacture a flexible heat pipe garment, laboratory prototype ;
3. Develop a novel light-weight heat exchanger to transfer heat from the heat pipe garment to the environment and integrate it with the heat pipe garment.

STEP 1
Wicking material can be used to absorb and transport water, even against gravity, distributing the water over its surface. The water is then held within the wicking material, allowing evaporation and resulting in an increased cooling effect.

This type of materials are based on open cell foam systems, i.e. materials which have porosity throughout the material, providing a path for fluid to travel through.
The size of the pores and the material are responsible for the performance of the wicking system.

A selection of materials was sourced for each main type of wicking material identified in order to downselect a representative variety of wicking materials for the evaporative testing.
BEST FIBRES BEST STRUCTURE FINISHING

STEP 2
Heat pipes are heat transfer devices that are characterized by a very high thermal conductivity which means they can transport heat with lower temperature

Heat pipes consist of a evaporator side where working fluid evaporates. Vapour is driven to condenser due to the pressure difference in between these two regions. Condensate returns to evaporator thanks to the action of capillarity in the wick material which completely lines heat pipe inner surface.

The picture shows a sketch of the patch where the different components have been remarked .

The heat pipe patch is constructed of three materials:
1. Metallised film that is heat sealed to form the outer sealed envelope of the heat pipe patch.
2. A spacer material to maintain vapour flow channels within the patch when under vacuum.
3. The wick material to allow even and fast distribution of water within the heat pipe patch, facilitating the water evaporation/condensation cycle, the mechanism for heat extraction from the skin.

STEP 3
The functionality and optimisation of the heat pipe patches is just one aspect of the design of the
StayCool cooling garment. The ergonomic design of the system is equally important to ensure that the final garment is comfortable and practical for use by fire-fighters.

The picture shows the final stay cool system we aim at

This technology will provide the following benefits for the firefighter:
• Better working conditions due to the low mass
• More efficient that other vests due to enhanced cooling capacity
• Useful endurance
• Comfort

Gather performance and ergonomic data on the laboratory prototype garment evidenced in a controlled laboratory trial to inform the development of the laboratory prototype into a pre-production prototype that can be manufactured within the price that the end user can afford.
Demonstrate (field trial) the effectiveness of the personal cooling system to end users

NWT’s primary contract is with Northwest Regional
Development Agency (NWDA) to act as a cluster support organization supporting the technical textile cluster in the northwest of the UK. As lead SME partner, NWT will primarily be responsible for IP protection, dissemination and coordination of the project. One of NWT’s key roles is to disseminate best practice and keep the cluster companies informed of technical developments relevant to the sector.

MAKATEC is a innovative SME developing new technologies for heat and mass transfer. As the first company worldwide Makatec are using the benefits of membrane technology for use in refrigeration.

EAG has been trading for 9 years supplying the emergency services with PPE from head to toe. They manufacture and distribute PPE products to all areas of the UK and Ireland.

EVA has its own production facilities and enjoys a stable position within the local and international market, producing and supplying clothes for large companies

QinetiQ is one of Europe’s largest independent science and technology organizations. Based on its extensive experience in the development and testing of Body cooling technologies QinetiQ is well placed to technically lead the research and development aspects of this programme.

ITAV is the main Research branch in South Europe. ITAV will be in charge of developing the heat exchange unit from the conceptual idea to the prototype, designing the most thermalefficient structure, materials and design. It will also provide a 3D model of the vest for the optimization of the evaporation phase and its evacuation to the heat pipe cold end. Finally ITAV will participate on the development of materials-based components of the control system, electrochromic battery charge reader and the conducting polymer-based temperature reader.

Cotton Textile and Clothing Centre – Centrocot is a Technology
Transfer Centre, located in one of the most important textile industrial areas of Italy. CENT can provide all kind of tests needed by the textile and clothing companies: Technological,
Chemical and Ecological; Certification and PPE, Electromagnetic
Measurement; Biological, UV Protection and Comfort;
Instruments Calibration. CENT will correlate the results of the research (e.g. skin model to evaluate the ability of transpiration of textile materials) with the construction parameters of textile materials. And also in this project CENT will advise on the requirements of the PPE and provide risk analysis and plans for testing in order to get the CE mark required for the PPE.

Roberto Vannucci
Centrocot
Centro Tessile Cotoniero e
Abbigliamento Spa
Piazza Sant’Anna, 2
21052 Busto Arsizio (VA)
Tel. +39 0331 696711 - Direct +39 0331
696778 - Fax 0331 680056 e-mail: roberto.vannucci@centrocot.it
site: www.centrocot.it