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Anti-Frostidigitation: Heatpipe Gloves
Hettinga writes "A little casemod couture this morning, courtesy of Hongbin Ma, a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Missouri. He has developed heatpipe-driven gloves which pump therms from your toasty upper arm down to those aforementioned frosty digits. 'Each glove contains five small heat pipes, one for each finger, that are about 14 inches long and 1 mm x 2 mm in the cross section. Each pipe consists of three sections: an evaporating section, which is attached to the upper arm area; an adiabatic section, which is between the finger area and the arm area; and the condensing section, which is attached to the finger area.' Coming soon to a half-pipe near you..."
Or we could just make gloves out of Aerogel.
The city is being overrun by a herd of Lucy Liu's.
But a while back Discovery had a mini series about extreme survival, and one of the shows was about artic survival. The main character, so to speak, tried on an electrical vest of sort, which heated his torso. This allowed him to stay in a -40(I think) degree windtunnel with I think 5 mph winds for more than three hours without losing any dexterity in his fingers.
When the guy who supervised the dexterity and mental acuity test took of his gloves, it took less than three minutes for his hands to be freezing cold, while the infrared camera clearly showed that the main characters fingers were still warm.
Seemed fairly conclusive to me, that the trick was keeping the torso heated, as that would prevent the problems, these gloves are supposed to fix.
Besides - if you can have warm dextorous fingers without wearing gloves, I'd go for that any day of the week, as long as I'm not working with objects, that can hurt my hands.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Your body cuts off the blood to extremities as a defense against the cold. Won't these gloves render that defense useless?
I see lots of "The Jerk" type lawsuits in this guy's future...
my GF is a Raynaud's sufferer and if she get's her hands in anything cold it can stop the circulation in her fingers and feet. causing frostbite even in warmer temperatures like 40degF.
this would make life for a Raynaud's afflicted person much easier on day's like today when it's 6degF outside and expected to be -1 later tonight.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Biking!
Without gloves, biking for longer than 30 seconds is painful many winter months. My commute (in western Illinois, less than an hour from Missouri) is only 2 miles, and I wear Thinsulate gloves, and my hands are STILL cold when I get to work.
Personally, I'd like to see a heat pump that moved heat from the small of my back (well insulated by a pack full of books and student papers) to my hands, nose, and ears!
cbd.
neat idea, moving the heat that way. here's another application of the same notion. (which i haven't yet seen) they should make a jacket/gloves that warms from a motorcycle cylendar head.
if anyone's ridden a motorbike in cold weather, you know what i mean. something that took the heat from the cylendar head would be a gem.. at 70 mph wind chill in 20 degree weather, nothing from your armpit's gonna help those fingers. many's the day i've ridden one handed in that kind of weather, holding my left hand to the engine block.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Anyone who has spent time in extremely cold conditions can attest to the desire for warm gloves. The body just doesn't "do enough" to protect the extremities (at least at first - I find my fingers get so cold that I'm in severe pain, and then suddenly they warm up. There's probably some medical explanation for this - anyone?).
An interesting solution I heard about was conductive textiles - fabrics that act as heating elements (i.e. they're not simply a wire - wires break easily and consume a lot of current). These were apparently used for astronauts gloves. I haven't been able to find civilian gloves using this technology, despite the potential these seem to have for things like skiing and motorcycle riding.
The basic key to keeping your extremities warm is to keep your core body warm so that the blood circulation doesn't get reduced in your extremeties. The problem is - if you are doing anything active in cold weather - skiing, mountaineering, running, etc - you end up having to dress more lightly simply because otherwise you overheat and become sweat soaked and exhausted. Result shortly thereafter: hypothermia.
So that's why these, and the conductive textile gloves are interesting ideas; you can keep you fingers and toes warm without having to overdress. The big question though is - are they reliable? Will your decision to use the batteries that happened to be in your roomie's TV remote control cost you your fingers?
While I agree with your point, I believe it mostly applies to stationary situations. In situations where you're moving on a motorcycle/snowmobile/etc. very quickly and in freezing temperatures, I could see this as a great improvement in glove technology. I, for one, welcome our new glove-making overlords. :^)
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Our body was designed quite smartly to conserve heat when the temperature drops. Circulation decreases to those parts of the body that are not necessarily important for immediate survival (a.k.a your fingers, toes, tip of your nose, and other protruding misc!) This ensures the maximum amount of heat for places that really need it - your core (a.k.a heart and lungs.) If you are pumping heat from your upper arm to your fingers you may actually be working against your body's own natural defenses.
rootsmith Inc.
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You are missing the point. This device works outside of the skin, and only transfers ambient heat.
How would moving heat that would go out into the atmosphere to your hands harm you in any way?
You're acting like that the gloves actually steal heat from the peoples' arms! Think about the principle here, people. Your upper arms are giving off that heat whether they've got these pipes covering them or not. All that heatpipes do are to take the heat that's already left the upper arms and move that heat downward.
That's like shoving branches into a mulcher, taking them away from the pile at the end, burning them, then saying that your branch pile is getting too small. It's waste! Or, an even better example would be regenerative braking on newer hybrid cars.
I ask you.. why are your hands warming it mittens than in gloves? Are mittens self-defeating?
must... stay... awake...
Alcohol has the same effect. It dilates the blood vessels in your skin, making you feel warmer at the cost of increased heat loss. That, coupled with a general loss of sensibility and reasoning, causes many deaths in places where the temperature falls below freezing.