Wearable active-cooling garment for personalized thermoregulation in vehicle

Abstract

The issue of energy waste caused by automobile air conditioning while improving the thermal environment of the compartment necessitates immediate attention. In this study, a liquid cooling garment (LCG) for vehicles was designed based on the heat flow field in the compartment. The silicone tubes (with inner diameter of 0.5 mm and a total length of 71.5 m, respectively) are woven into a T-shirt and used as heat exchange pipelines in eleven regions (including the chest and belly). We adopted the thermoelectric cooler with a maximum refrigeration coefficient of 0.68 for the active cooling supply, and the maximum energy consumption of the LCG system is 0.15 kW∙h. The temperature distribution of an outdoor parking compartment was monitored in the summer to verify the simulation results. The experiment results have shown that the maximum temperature difference between the subject wearing LCG and the reference group was 3 °C under the high-temperature environment (37–42 °C). The thermal sensation score of the subject ranged from −1 to 3, and the thermal comfort and thermal acceptability scores ranged from −0.01 to 1. The LCG has been demonstrated to meet human cooling needs. This work provides a new idea for designing personal temperature control systems and establishes a foundation for the wide application of cooling garments.