Protective clothing ensemble with two-stage evaporative cooling
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorsLarry Berglund, Reed Hoyt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A hazardous materials protective garment may use a two-stage evaporative cooling process to ease heat strain on the wearer of the garment. The garment may include an impermeable inner layer and a wicking outer layer. One or more reservoirs may be disposed interior to the inner layer for collecting condensed and/or unevaporated sweat. One or more pumps may move the sweat to the exterior of the impermeable layer for distribution in the wicking layer and evaporation from the garment.
Claims32
A protective garment for an animate being, comprising:
- an impermeable inner layer;
- a reservoir disposed interior to the inner layer, for collecting sweat from the animate being;
- a pump for moving the sweat from the reservoir to a location external to the inner layer;
- and
- a distribution system located external to the inner layer, for distributing the sweat on an exterior of the garment.
A protective garment for a human, comprising:
- an impermeable inner layer;
- a reservoir disposed interior to the inner layer, for collecting sweat from the human, the sweat collected in the reservoir comprising at least one of 1) unevaporated liquid sweat, and 2) liquid sweat that has exuded from the human, evaporated, and condensed on the inner layer;
- a pump for moving the sweat from the reservoir to a location external to the inner layer;
- inlet tubing having one end in fluid communication with the reservoir and another end connected to an inlet of the pump;
- outlet tubing having one end connected to an outlet of the pump and another end that passes through the inner layer;
- and
- a distribution system located external to the inner layer, for distributing the sweat on an exterior of the garment, the outlet tubing being operatively connected to the distribution system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.