The Next Generation of Cold Immersion Dry Suit Design Evolution for Hypothermia Prevention

A body at sea is vulnerable to hypothermia, which often leads to loss of life. Hypothermia is caused by the differences between the core body temperature and the surrounding air and seawater temperatures. The greater the differences between the body core temperature and the sea temperature, the more rapidly the core body temperature will drop, and hypothermia can quickly set in. Heat loss is primarily caused by conduction of heat away from the body. Most cold immersion suits on the market are passive designs that only insulate the body against the cold, although some cold immersion suits use special materials such as paraffin to absorb heat and to radiate the heat back to the body. This new utility patent is an active design that relies on the lung’s role as an organic heat exchanger for providing deep body core heating of air. It is based on the fact that the greatest heat loss mechanism for an insulated human body immersed in a cold water environment is due to heat loss through respiration.