Prevention of Exertional Heat Illness and Heat Related Fatigue by Use of a Novel Shelter with Integrated Cooling Capability

Heatstroke, heat exhaustion, and heat fatigue are forms of exertional heat illness (EHI) that are significant risks to a service member’s health and productivity during military operations. Current EHI prevention method is to limit exertional work periods based on a wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) and then use resting periods to dissipate built up body heat. Cooled tents and other shelters may be used to significantly help to dissipate the excessive body heat but large, heavy, power hungry environmental control units (ECUs) must be used to provide the cooling which limits their practicality and use in mitigating EHI in austere conditions. Unfortunately, austere conditions are exactly the scenarios where cooled shelters are needed the most to prevent loss of life of health for service members during strenuous outdoor activities. This proposed effort will build, evaluate, and refine our Integrated, Collapsible, Cooled by Evaporative Effect (ICCEE) technology that provides an extremely portable, light weight, actively cooled shelter with minimal power requirements specifically designed to be used in austere conditions. Since evaporative cooling uses 5-15% of the power of a traditional mechanical refrigerant-based cooling system, evaporative coolers are inherently much more lightweight and inexpensive to operate. Additionally, because the power requirement is so low, evaporative coolers can be powered by hand-held generators or battery packs to generate the same cooling capacity as produced by standard mechanical refrigerant-based systems, like ECUs, using large generators that must be moved by prime movers on the battlefield.  When the considerations of fuel consumed, footprint required, equipment needed, etc., the benefits of using evaporative cooling during expeditionary operations must be explored. While the specific objective of this proposed effort is to better prevent EHI injury and death of service members performing physically demanding activities “at the edge” during combat or training operations, this effort will also further the general knowledge and understanding of evaporative cooled shelters for general use (workspace, sleeping, etc.) in expeditionary operations.