So here we are, the second installment of my new weekly post. I know how riveting my diatribe on TV advertising was, so I'll be hard-pressed to top that (my big fat fingers slipped and made me type hard-opressed; just thought that was funny). But I think I've succeeded.
I've been puzzling over this one for years now, ever since my military days. There is a big problem with keeping soldiers cool when they are in certain situations. They have a lot of body armor they have to wear in combat, not to mention the everyday guard positions that all military personnel are forced to participate in at some point or another. This is true for for other professions as well, like policemen and firefighters who wear heavy uniforms. Also, those who participate in most sports, as well as your every day outdoorsman.
My solution to this problem was the water shirt. The water shirt is a article of clothing with semi-rigid tubing sown into it that wraps around the body. That tubing has a regulated flow of water pumped through it to assist in cooling the body, much the same way a heat exchanger works.
My idea is to then connect the tubing to a small fan pack worn on the hip that will have a set of fans similar to those used in laptops. These fans will pass air over the water as makes a couple of loops through the pack, thus chilling the water before it returns to the tubing around the body. There will also be a very small pump attached that will facillitate the water movement.The main flow of water will be under the armpits, where nature agrees we need the most cooling. It will then split off to the front and back and work it's way down to the cooling station on the hip.
One problem of course will be leakage. How do you make it thin enough to exchange heat, while still making it thick enough to avoid being punctured easily? This is accomplished a couple of ways. First, A very thin material will be used on the interior side of the shirt to create the pockets the tubes will rest in. This will reduce the insulation between the tubing and the skin. Second, the tubing itself will actually be tubing inside of tubing, with a thicker tubing being wrapped around the thinner tubing, and gaps cut in the thick tubing on the side closest to the skin to protect it from outside damage while still being able to exchange heat.
Another difficulty lies in powering it. the fans and pump will draw a pretty good amount of electricity, so my first thought was some sort of piezioelectric power supply, that would take advantage of the movement of the wearer to help with power. In reality, however, that would probably only work in a limited number of applications, like the combat soldier or someone in athletics. So a small, rechargeable battery pack would also need to be included, perhaps on the other hip, so the wearer isn't as weighed down on one side.
Now, this has the potential to be unsightly. So it wouldn't be ideal for those in high profile positions, or in a meeting full of suits. But the policeman who's forced to wear a bulletproof vest would find a device like this quite useful. And the average man who wants to go for a run will feel like he's running on a breezy spring day, regardless of the conditions.
Those are a couple of my taglines for this product. Feel free to add your own. Of course, if you have any ideas of your own you feel like sharing, let me know and I'll be happy to put them up here.
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