Rini Technologies’ personal Thermal Management System is a vest system which is worn under equipment to maintain a comfortable temperature for the wearer.
It features a system of water-filled tubes which circulates through a Thermal Management Unit, a refrigeration unit that chills the water to a comfortable 72 degrees farenheit. Rini also offers a heater box for colder temperatures, which heats the water to around 100 degrees fahrenheit. These systems are powered either through a separate battery pack, or through vehicle power.
Rini has also developed a variant of the PTMS in a MilSpec desert oriented colorway, as well as a specialized TMU developed in collaboration with PEO Soldier, with a 28 volt system designed to run off aircraft power, for use with US Army Aviation.
Tags: Darley Defense, Rini Technologies
That’s pretty neat. I wonder if they’ll be adding extremity expansions at some point, I could see that being rather useful with the cold climate model.
Until you run out of power and the liquid freezes and you die.
A full body coverage already exists, it’s called wool base layers. Staying warm in a cold environment isn’t a problem as you can dress up, but staying cool in a hot environment is close to impossible with traditional clothing.
Adding more coverage can also slow you down and impede evaporation. Where you’re already screwed, like an EOD suit, full body is worn, but for BDU’s no need. Your body already sweats enough to keep you cool, the question is if your clothing and equipment is vapor permeable enough to allow the moisture to evaporate cooling your body. I’m sure someone here can relate to pulling a plate carrier off (or worse yet IOTV/MTV) after operating in desert conditions and having your combat shirt soaked, or having “other” parts of your body “swampy”. Wicking is an important part of this on base layers and highly permeable clothing with good airflow is essential as well. Always playing the protective posture vs. heat/moisture exchange trade-off game. Remember, the natives wear long flowing garments with billowing and airflow. I don’t know about the nomex flight suits, but I imagine the permeability/airflow sucks compared to BDU pants and a combat shirt.
And speaking of the cold model. That’s a completely different thing. Whole body is not really needed. A completely different can of worms, but liquid flowing has distinct downfalls. It freezing, especially if something breaks/out of batteries, impeding your evaporation. Plus you can generate heat really easily, but you need a system (like this) to move heat away (cooling).
I’m not debating it’s use in certain hot weather scenarios. I’d actually like it cause if I can carry 1L of water on my body, and go down to 3L in my bag I’d rather do that than to carry 10L in my bag, even though I’m just wearing an BDU type uniform.
Just like NASA uses for the astronuts. If I recall, the concept had been designed by the Brits well before. I’m glad to see it miniaturized, this is something that buttoned up vehicle crews could take advantage of.
The concept has been around for awhile, this is just a smaller system than many. There are a number of existing vapor compression systems that use the same principle, but I can’t speak to the weight and efficiency. I believe this system was part of the Air Warrior evaluation program. I don’t know what came out of it as there was supposed to be testing at Natick. It isn’t the best for buttoned up crews without an exhaust or other A/C because it runs a vapor compression cycle. Thermodynamics will get you because the rejected heat is the cooling ability plus the inefficiency. Imagine sitting in a tiny room with the open door of a refrigerator, it will get hot. My understanding was this was going to be primarily for air crews in helo’s and cargo craft such where weight and limited mobility are needed but enough airflow/ambient air to reject the heat into. This would be very useful under MOPP conditions (if compatible) for vehicles that don’t button up to CBRN specs. There have been similar systems available for stationary crew for decades and are generally better for that application. Unless someone wins a Nobel prize in physics by multiplying our battery energy density by ten or so, combat arms guys won’t see these for awhile unless you want to carry 20+ lbs of batteries for a 2 day mission or there’s a giant influx of money to go to CRBN preparedness for the infantry, note the “28 volt system designed to run off aircraft power”. The only people currently using a portable system on a regular basis are specialized HAZMAT team, some firefighters, and EOD expecially.
That was “some of the only people” my touch pad got the better of me when I was thinking of the other people who wear personal cooling/microclimate systems. Vapor compression systems do have potential positive applications for ground crews on the tarmac for instance as well. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of the systems and also a lack of understanding of their effects. It is nice to see this stuff appearing at trade shows.
i tested a system very similar to this for PEO Air Warrior. We already have a cooling system in the aircraft that you can tether to. Problem is no one used it because your tethered by these hoses which severely limit mobility. So they’ve been trying to come up with this idea of a complete body worn system meaning cooling unit and power supply are worn on the person. Besides that one advantage there are far more disadvantages.
1. You lose a bunch of real estate on your vest to mount these products. And even after mounting them, cable and cord management become a terrible issue. Throw in PHODS and other stuff and there is no room left for ammo and medical.
2. These things are way bulkier than in these pictures. Its bad enough to operate in some of the kit we do, but wearing these big ass boxes and cylinder added extra bulk where it wasn’t needed and affected getting into certain positions in order to do our job.
3. the battery life is garbage. They were set to work on radio batteries. However, the life for one battery was only set to be around 1 hour and 15 minutes or some silly number like that. That meant that i would have to carry 20+ batteries on board everyday just to be able to run this system. Multiply that times the the number of other crews and helicopters and the number of days you’re operating in an area and you have a logistical battery nightmare.
4. Lastly, this problem applies to both remote worn or tethered systems. When this thing fails, that cooling vest becomes a detriment to performance. You had might as well be wearing a sauna suit.and the only way to do it is strip off your vest and remove that cooling vest.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a great concept and will have some applications outside of just aviation, but i think the process can be refined further. The way i’ve used this vest is a simple solution to wearing it around. Simply run the hoses and power to it as if you would wear it, and the just put it on your seat bottom and sit on it. You would still get some of the cooling without a bunch of the restraints.
Just my 2 cents.
Thanks Kris for some first hand experience. I can’t wait for the testing to show up on DTIC. I’m glad they actually did it, the funding for this stuff got nixed about 2012-13. I have some familiarity with these as well. I didn’t get into all the downfalls in quite the same detail as I don’t have the same familiarity with this particular system, but I wasn’t kidding about the 20+ lbs of batteries.
I’m assuming the other one you wore actually had the water flowing from the aircraft through the tubes and then back as in the pilot system? Being tethered has some serious drawbacks, especially for aircrews. The wearable ones take up a fair amount of real estate, some are an entire backpack and can be fragile and get in the way. Not to mention carrying extra weight can negatively impact your heat storage as well, but the grunts already know this. Is this one the cylinder and battery or does it include the cylinder, battery and box? It really comes down to energy density and bulk at this point. I think if you’re fighting dirty these will be a godsend because work time in the desert in MOPP 4 isn’t pretty and if you have to do CAS and medevacs there’s a decent chance you’ll pass out before you get over target, but there are other options as well that have been around for longer than these.
That shirt is definitely gold and white…