Vamsi Kondapalli (PI), Kyle Brittingham, Vesselin Shanov
University of
Cincinnati, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Firefighters
while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) are often exposed to high
temperature and physical strain during training and real scenario duty.
Hyperthermia is a medical condition due to an abnormal rise in body
temperatures above 40oC and can lead to heatstroke thus becoming fatal. Cooling
products, like cold packs, are commercially available, however, they only cool
the user for several minutes and are made for one-time use. This project
focuses on making a prototype helmet with highly efficient thermoelectric (TE)
cooling to reduce the head`s temperature of individuals such as construction
workers, firefighters, miners, etc. The cool helmet employs a heat spreader for
transporting the metabolic and external heat to the TE cooler. A wide variety
of heat spreaders like copper foil, commercial carbon veil (CV), CV-cloth
composites and graphene composites with 3.5 times the thermal conductivity of
copper have been tested taking their cost, mechanical stability, availability,
weight, and environmental impact into consideration. The cool helmet was
evaluated by heating from the top and the bottom using an incandescent bulb.
The temperature was measured and mapped within the 3D space of the helmet by
multiple thermocouples and an infrared camera FLIR T1010. The heating and
cooling temperature data revealed that the addition of CV and copper foil
greatly enhanced the cooling rate compared to the materials normally used in
conventional helmets. Further, with the tested heat spreader and TE cooler
turned on, the heating time to critical temperature of 40oC was increased by
more than 3 times, which confirmed the functionality of the cooled helmet.