Testing of a Novel Portable Body Temperature Conditioner Using a Thermal Manikin

摘要

A battery-operated active cooling/heating device was developed to maintain thermoregulation of trauma victims in austere environments while awaiting evacuation to a hospital for further treatment. The use of a thermal manikin was adopted for this study in order to simulate load testing and evaluate the performance of this novel portable active cooling/heating device for both continuous (external power source) and battery power. The performance of the portable body temperature conditioner (PBTC) was evaluated through cooling/heatingfraction tests to analyze the heat transfer between a thermal manikin and circulating water blanket to show consistent performance while operating under battery power. For the cooling/heating fraction tests, the ambient temperature was set to 15°C ±TC (heating) and 3CPC ± TC (cooling). The PBTC water temperature was set to 37° C for the heating mode tests and 15° C for the cooling mode tests. The results showed consistent performance of the PBTC in terms of cooling/heating capacity while operating under both continuous and battery power. The PBTC functioned as intended and shows promise as a portable warming/cooling device for operation in the field.