MS patients can be adversely affected by heat; they fatigue more quickly and their symptoms become more pronounced. There are a variety of body vests and accessories currently available for cooling, but they are not ideal. Most of these products are bulky, short-lived and unfashionable making them unpopular with MS patients. A phase change material with potential for a cooling system design has been identified but needs further investigation and optimization to be used in this context.

The goals for this project are to analyze and optimize the phase change material in the body cooling application and to determine the feasibility for use. A testing apparatus will be designed to test different garments and body locations to determine the ideal cooling parameters. The end result will be a functional prototype that has been tested and found to provide the most efficient method of cooling.

For additional details of the project description, click on the following link for the Project Readiness Package.

Examples of Cooling Garments

Project Name

Body Cooling System

Project Number

P16013

Project Family

Biomedical Systems and Technologies

Start Term

2151

End Term

2155

Faculty Guide

Charlie Tabb, ctabb@rochester.rr.com

Primary Customer

Industrial Design Studio 2.0

Al Sigl's Community of Agencies

MS Society

Sponsor (financial support)

The National Science Foundation

The Albert J. Simone Center for Student Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Project Management

Photo Gallery

Imagine RIT

Human Subjects Research

Planning & Execution

Problem Definition

Systems Design

Subsystem Design

Preliminary Detailed Design

Detailed Design

Build & Test Prep

Subsystem Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test with Customer Demo

Customer Handoff & Final Project Documentation