Preliminary Investigation of the Design of a Mechanically Antagonistic,Actuating Countermeasure Garment

摘要

Countermeasure garments are worn by all NASA crew during Earth reentry,landing,and egress to mitigate lower body blood pooling,which can contribute to orthostatic intolerance(OI)and impair a crew member's ability to complete critical landing tasks.The likelihood of cardiovascular deconditioning increases with mission duration; therefore,countermeasure garments are a critical safeguard to astronaut health as we push the bounds of space exploration into 3+ year missions(e.g.,Journey to Mars).Current on-body compression technologies are either a mobility hazard,such as tethered,inflatable compression systems,or cumbersome due to their static design,such as undersized,elastic garments.Active-contracting fabrics enable an alternative solution-compression garments that can be donned in a low-pressure,relaxed configuration and contract and stiffen in response to small changes in temperature.This work presents a preliminary investigation of the design of an actuating compression garment for astronauts using high-force,low-temperature actuator fabrics in parallel with passive elastic fabrics to form a mechanically antagonistic wearable system.This mechanically antagonistic wearable system is conceptually defined and built in the form of a prototype calf sleeve with two goals in mind.First,we present the first implementation of a new design methodology and use strategy to observe the functional challenges of this compression garment system.Secondly,we present system performance data to identify areas of the design process that require refinement and/or additional research.The resulting trial run paves the way for future prototype advancements in aerospace and terrestrial domains.