Cooling helmet

Abstract

An impact protective item of headwear (1) which has inner (2) and outer (6) impact resistant parts nesting one with respect to the other and shaped to hold between them a replaceable pouch (9) with a gel cooling or otherwise of a user.

Description

[0001] This invention relates to headwear particularly suited to be worn by persons requiring headwear that will provide impact protection for the wearer. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] It has been known to use ice held close to the head of a person to provide cooling for medical purposes. [0003] For instance, it is known to cover the head with a pliable material adapted to hold frozen liquid so that the surface of the head is kept cold. This process is used to reduce damage to hair follicles for those who might be taking cancer drugs where they might otherwise lose their hair. [0004] In practical headwear that provides impact protection which also includes temperature modifying materials, there is one prior art example published as a mere paper publication where there is a helmet with an arrangement to support a bladder with a breakable pouch of an encapsulated ammonium salt within a body of water. The bladder is shown as fitting against an inner side of the helmet and is arran...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013] Also where there is a lower and upper part of an impact resistant material, this then allows for improved impact resistance by reason of a double wall characteristic which can then also mean that lighter materials may be used for the individual parts which is to say lighter than would have been ordinarily needed for a single thickness crown to get a similar protective effect. This can assist in keeping an all up weight of a helmet within acceptable limits.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately the use of a breakable pouch within a bladder in this disclosure is used to replace soft padding and is shown so that the liquid bladder will bear directly against the head of a wearer.

This has the disadvantage that the bladder will result in heat transfer from a users head directly by conduction to the bladder and is not conducive to cooling any other areas of the head.

This leads implicitly to significant temperature differences against the head and is somewhat akin to having an ice pack held against the skin where this becomes very uncomfortable after a modest period.

A further difficulty with direct contact is that the temperature modifying material will be directly contacting a head of the user with the result that any retained heat differential will be compromised relatively quickly.

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