Patent Application
20120167288
The present invention relates to a thermal vest, more particularly to a vest with thermally efficient heating and cooling of the upper torso, front and back, of a wearer.
There are many industrial situations requiring individuals to work in hostile environments where the temperature is so high that it cannot reasonably be tolerated for a satisfactory period of time. This is particularly true for high-temperature environments such as foundries and factories carrying out processes where the worker cannot be readily isolated from the processing itself or from hot equipment or a surrounding hot environment. Similarly, medical workers are often required to don protective garments to deter the spread of disease. Such protective garments by their nature do not lend themselves to the flow of air for evaporative cooling of the body of a wearer. Yet other situations such as fire-fighting and working out-of-doors in warm weather can expose individuals to high ambient temperatures and adversely affect both comfort and safety.
In such cases there is a need to keep radiant, conductive and/or convective heat from reaching the individual's body, particularly the torso. Where the environmental temperature or heat level is extremely high, as near an open furnace or the like, the primary concern is to intercept a large amount of the heat which would otherwise reach the worker. This may be accomplished by both reflection and adsorption. Preferably, the heat not reflected is dissipated in melting a frozen material. Insulation may also be used between the heat source and the body to further isolate heat from reaching the body.
Cooling vests utilizing frozen gel packs are known in the art. Such cooling vests include pockets or pouches into which the gel packets are inserted. The pockets are located proximate a wearer's body to help cool the wearer. A shortcoming of such vests is that the frozen gel packs may initially be too cold, causing discomfort and even frostbite to the wearer's skin. Vests having an insulating material intermediate the pouch and the wearer's skin have been devised to overcome this problem. However, a drawback of such devices is that the cooling effect of the gel packs may become prematurely ineffective due to the insulation, thereby reducing the amount of time the vest is useful to cool the body of the wearer. There is a need for a cooling vest that utilizes cooling packs that can be easily and quickly manipulated by a wearer in such a way as to regulate their cooling effect on the body of the wearer, in order to both deter discomfort due to excessive cooling while still maximizing the amount of time a cooling effect is provided by the vest.
The present invention is a thermal vest for controlling the rate of heat transfer between portions of the human body and the environment around the body. In one embodiment the present invention is used to reduce the amount of heat reaching the body from an unusually hot environment. In another embodiment the present invention may be used to reduce the body temperature by absorbing heat from the body. In still another embodiment the present invention may be used with heated packs to warm the body of the wearer in a cold environment, such as in wintry conditions out-of-doors or in refrigerated workspaces.
One aspect of the present invention includes a thermal vest having a front panel sized and shaped to substantially cover the front of a wearer's torso. A back panel is spaced apart from and opposes the front panel, the back panel being sized and shaped to cover the back of the wearer's torso. At least one pocket is on an interior of at least one of the panels, the pocket having an opening sized and shaped to receive a thermal pack. An insulative pad is selectably attached to the pocket, the insulative pad being selectably movable between a stowed position facially adjacent the pocket and a deployed, non-adjacent position away from the pocket. The insulative pad provides thermal insulation between the pocket and the wearer in the stowed position and is movable by the wearer to the deployed position when thermal insulation is not desired.
Another aspect of the present invention is a thermal vest comprising a front panel sized and shaped to substantially cover the front of a wearer's torso, the front panel having a left sub-panel and a right sub-panel. A front panel fastener selectably couples together the left and right sub-panels. A back panel is spaced apart from and opposes the front panel, the back panel being sized and shaped to cover the back of the wearer's torso. A pair of shoulder fasteners extend between the front panel and the back panel. A pair of torso fasteners also extend between the front panel and the back panel. At least one pocket is on an interior of at least one of the panels, the pocket having an opening sized and shaped to receive a thermal pack. An insulative pad is selectably attached to the pocket, the insulative pad being selectably movable between a stowed position facially adjacent the pocket and a deployed, non-adjacent position away from the pocket. The insulative pad provides thermal insulation between the pocket and the wearer in the stowed position. The insulative pad is movable by the wearer to the deployed position when thermal insulation is not desired.
Further features of the inventive embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art to which the embodiments relate from reading the specification and claims with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Front panel 12 preferably includes a left sub-panel 20 and a right sub-panel 22, the left and right sub-panels being generally shaped as mirror images and each subpanel having a front shoulder portion 24. Sub-panels 20, 22 are selectably coupled together by a front panel fastener 26, which may take the form of a zipper, a hook-and-loop fastener, buttons, snaps, or any other type of fastener suitable for use with thermal vest 10. Sub-panels 20, 22 may be made from any material suitable for use with thermal vest 10 including, without limitation, fabrics such as flame-resistant nylon and polyester-cotton blends. Alternatively, sub-panels 20, 22 may be made of a material of a type such as that sold by DuPont Corporation under the trademark NOMEX, which is a flame retardant ceramic material. Sub-panels 20, 22 may also include an insulating material such as, but not limited to insulating material sold by 3M Company under the trademark THINSULATE. Sub-panels 20, 22 may further comprise waterproof and/or breathable fabrics, such as the material sold by W. L. Gore & Associates, Elkton, Md. under the trademark GORE-TEX.
Back panel 14 is shaped to generally correspond to the shape of front panel 12. Back panel 14 further includes a pair of back shoulder portions 28 corresponding to the front shoulder portions 24. Like front panel 12, back panel 14 may be made from any material suitable for use with thermal vest 10 including, without limitation, fabrics such as flame-resistant nylon and polyester-cotton blends. Alternatively, back panel 14 may be made from NOMEX, insulating material such as THINSULATE, and waterproof and/or breathable fabrics, such as GORE-TEX.
Shoulder fasteners 16 comprise a fastener member 30a secured to front shoulder portions 24 and a corresponding fastener member 30b secured to back shoulder portions 28. Shoulder fasteners 16 may be a hook-and-loop fastener such as that sold by Velcro USA, Inc. of Manchester, N.H. under the trademark VELCRO. Alternatively, buttons, snaps, or any other types of fasteners suitable for use with thermal vest 10 may be utilized for shoulder fasteners 16.
Torso fasteners 18 include straps 32 attached to back panel 12 as shown in
With reference now to
Pocket 38 may be made from any material suitable for use with thermal vest 10 including, without limitation, fabrics such as flame-resistant nylon. Alternatively, back panel 14 may be made from NOMEX, insulating material such as THINSULATE, and waterproof and/or breathable fabrics, such as GORE-TEX.
Cooling pack 42 may be any type of freezable cooling pack suitable for thermal vest 10. Example cooling packs include, without limitation, packaged ice or a refrigerant gel. Alternatively, cooling pack 42 may be solid nitrate or ammonium chloride as part of an endothermic reaction process.
Insulative pad 46 may be made from a suitable number of layers of any material suitable for use with thermal vest 10 including, without limitation, fabrics such as flame-resistant nylon. Insulative pad 46 may also include NOMEX, insulating material such as THINSULATE and polyethylene foam, and waterproof and/or breathable fabrics, such as GORE-TEX. In one embodiment, shown in
Pad fasteners 48 comprise a pad fastener member 60a attached to pad 46 and configured to be selectably coupled to a corresponding pocket fastener member 60b of pocket 38. Fastener members 60a, 60b preferably comprise a hook-and-loop fastener. Alternatively, buttons, snaps, or any other types of fasteners suitable for use with thermal vest 10 may be utilized for pad fasteners 48.
Pull tabs 52 may be made from any type of material suitable for use with thermal vest 10 including, without limitation, woven cloth or “ballistic” woven plastic material.
With reference now to
To use thermal vest 10, cooling packs 42 corresponding to pockets 38 are first pre-cooled (preferably frozen) in a freezer. Referring to
When thermal vest 10 is initially worn after installing the frozen cooling packs 42, the stowed insulative pads 46 between pockets 38 and the wearer's skin (
As cooling packs 42 melt they gradually become less effective for cooling the wearer. With reference to
In another embodiment of the present invention cooling packs 42 may be interchangeable with heating packs 64 (
Heating packs 64 may be any type of heating device now known or later invented including, without limitation, electrically heated devices, chemically-reactive heating devices, phase change materials, and packs containing a material having a high specific heat capacity which, when heated in a warming oven or microwave oven, gradually releases the heat over time.
When heating packs 64 are installed in pockets 38 instead of cooling packs 42, thermal vest 10 may be used as a heating vest. Such a vest may be used to advantage in low-temperature situations such as out-of-doors in cold weather or in refrigerated spaces.
While this invention has been shown and described with respect to a detailed embodiment thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that changes in form and detail thereof may be made without departing from the scope of the claims of the invention.
