Brock profs developing $500,000 cooling suit
Brock University and Jannatec Technologies are about to start developing a suit like something out of science-fiction.
The goal? A smart suit that can non-invasively detect over-heated temperatures of its wearer and strategically cool them down in the best places for their body and mind.
Who would use such a suit? Well, it’s being developed for deep-earth miners — but the potential uses don’t stop there.
In just about any environment of extreme heat, the suits could potentially have some application, according to Stephen Cheung, professor of Kinesiology at Brock University.
Cheung says it could be adopted by the military, space programs and just about any place where temperatures get hot enough to hinder human performance. Let’s take a step back. How do you go about finding out where to start when developing a cooling suit?
Cheung and his team have a room where temperatures can be controlled and brought up to those similar to that of deep mines.
Far under the earth’s surface, temperatures rise extremely quickly due to the increase in pressure, as much as nine degrees celsius per kilometre of depth, according to Cheung.
He says at the rock face itself, the geothermal gradient increases surface temperature about 2.5 to three degrees per 100-metres of depth.
This means temperatures can reach as high as 60 degrees celsius, as is the case in the world’s deepest mine, AngloGold Ashanti’s Mponeng gold mine, located south-west of Johannesburg in South Africa, according to a list of the world’s deepest mines by mining-technology.com.
In those conditions, it’s crucial to keep workers cool.
Currently, there are a number of ways companies tackle the problem, including mass ventilation with fans and climate controlled recovery rooms and chambers.
But Cheung says these methods are wasteful, expensive and don’t target the specific needs of individual workers.
Instead, the idea is that it will be easier and more efficient to cool the workers directly, instead of trying to control the temperature of the whole mine environment.
As Cheung puts it, “like in winter, it costs a lot to heat a big house compared to individuals wearing an extra sweater.”
When asked about the specific cooling methods that will be used, Cheung said, “we are designing some new proprietary cooling methods incorporating thermal electric modules rather than traditional ice or cold water.”
He says the modules will be powered by electricity and draw heat away from the module surface closer to the skin.
The suits will be powered by batteries, most likely lithium, says Cheung.
Some similar technology exists already, namely the cooling suits astronauts wear on space walks.
In those suits, cold water or glycol is pumped through tubes that line the suit.
Cheung says these methods, developed in the 60s, are “dumb” in the sense that there is minimal control of the suit and because the suit will cool evenly all over, not taking into account the areas that actually need it.
He says part of the challenge is figuring out the most effective places to cool.
They have some initial ideas, based on a lot of research on where blood flows closest to the skin surface and blood vessels won’t close off when skin gets cold, says Cheung.
He says those are the types of places they might start looking at to find out where the most effective places to cool are.
Some examples of those places are the head and neck, says Cheung.
Other hotspots they’ll be focusing on — spare the pun — are places where the body sweats heavily.
“The challenging thing is, miners want minimal constraints on them. So even getting something like your standard sports heart-rate strap on them is difficult because they might be moving around or doing a lot of stuff.”
That’s why he says one of the focuses will be including cooling in helmets, which miners are required to wear at all times anyways.
The suits will be designed to suit the needs of different situations.
Part of the testing method will be putting people into a controlled chamber where they can recreate mine temperatures.
Cheung says the people in the chamber will be doing various forms of physical exercise to find out the best ways to cool them.
Research is expected to take about two years to complete.
The project comes with a price tag of around $500,000.
Cheung says the only other people working on anything like this in the world that he knows of is the United States military.