Cooling vest

A cooling vest or ice vest is a piece of equipment worn to cool a person down. Cooling vests are used by many elite sporting bodies, industry workers, doctors, and people with Multiple Sclerosis. Olympic athletes use the lightweight body cooling vest to pre-cool before events.

Vests range in weight from around two to eight pounds, depending on the model.

Cooling vests can use a number of methods. Some modern vests use the adiabatic expansion of compressed air, and can cool a worker for long periods in very hot conditions. Typically, these vests will reduce air temperature by about 25 °F, with a flow rate of no more than about 5 cubic feet per minute on average. Some vests combine neoprene with frozen gels to create a cold compression vest that drives cold deep into soft tissues to lower core body temperature rapidly. Vests can also use chemical packs, however, most vests are essentially heat sinks that cool a person through conduction (although some also dehumidify the thin layer air immeadiately surrounding the body). Some vests use a layered cooling module system to allow for longer term cooling withoug creating stiffness in the vest.

Cooling vests are similar in function to the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garments worn by astronauts.