It’s hot. Humidity is near one hundred pc, and you’re in full combat gear — including chemical-biological protection. Between your helmet and mask, all of your head is roofed, leaving a sensation of suffocating heat. Sweat pours as you run, climb and crawl through enemy territory. How will you get through it?
A fan blows soothing air across your face, under the tight-fitted mask.
Technology brings this relief to a Soldier through a powered air purifying respirator, which is composed of a hose connected to the face mask from a blower unit and battery pack hanging off the hip or back. a regular respirator is heavy and cumbersome, adding to the load of the equipment troops already carry.
In 2013, Edgewood Chemical Biological Center scientists began designing concepts for a higher generation of chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear respirators. They developed a fan embedded inside the mask’s filtration system that uses less power, is lighter and is much less bulky than conventional respirators. Along with reduced weight and tool requirements, this method offers major improvements to the extent of comfort and effectiveness of the mask.
The mini-blower works by pulling air through a filtration system at the side of the mask and sweeping it around the nose cup to permit for even flow around the face. When the user exhales, the air valve closes and diverts all the clean filtered air into the mask’s eye cavity to over-pressurize the face piece, preventing any potential for out of doors contaminates to go into the mask should there be a break within the seal.
In test studies, a modified, commercial version of the M50 joint service general purpose mask has proven to be more well-off to a Soldier, and maintains an analogous or greater effectiveness when crawling, running, or during rifle exercises and combat maneuvers. These technology demonstrations produced real-time data on mask protection factors, thermal sensation and luxury to the Soldier.
Edgewood Chemical Biological Center’s Respiratory Protection Branch continues to develop multiple technologies, anticipating integration with next-generation helmet and communication system designs and user needs.
As the team looks ahead, they anticipate a mask it really is capable of sense when the fan must come on and when it is going to shut off in response to physiological monitoring, and the power of the user to govern the scalability (operational mode) of the system: fan off, fan on with airflow simply to the attention cavity or fan on with airflow to both the attention cavity and nose cup.
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Edgewood Chemical Biological Center is a part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to develop technology and engineering solutions for America’s Soldiers.
The Research, Development and Engineering Command is a chief subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. AMC is the Army’s premier provider of materiel readiness — technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection, and sustainment — to the complete force, around the spectrum of joint military operations. If a Soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, eats it or communicates with it, AMC provides it.
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