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Home > Blog > Upgraded Comfort with an Upgraded Design: The New Vortec Cooling Vest

Upgraded Comfort with an Upgraded Design: The New Vortec Cooling Vest

4/20/2022
With temperatures beginning to rise as we get closer to summer, it is important to make sure your employees are protected from heat-related illness in hot work environments. Personal cooling products can largely help in minimizing heat stress and fatigue. To keep employees comfortable, safe, and productive, employers turn to the newly designed Vortec Cooling Vests.  

The legacy Personal Air Conditioners were successful in keeping employees cool in extreme conditions, but when designing the new Vortec Cooling Vest (VCV), Vortec engineers kept the user in mind. The new perforated air vests are made up of a more flexible and lightweight material to ensure the user has full range of motion and is comfortable while receiving continuous cooling throughout the vest. The VCV can be worn under personal protective equipment and the temperature adjustment knob can be accessed easily – even with gloved hands – to ensure the user can adjust the temperature to their preferences.

Industry Wide Cooling Solution

Vortec Cooling Vests can be found in a variety of industries:
  • Construction
  • Agriculture
  • Warehousing
  • Marine services and shipbuilding
  • Iron and steel foundries
  • Industrial painting
  • Smelters
  • Boiler room workers
These are just a few of the top industries that VCVs can be used in, but don’t just take it from us, hear directly from some customers in those industries:
Providing Cooling Gear in Challenging Conditions
Keeping workers cool while protected from hazardous materials was a 10-year quest at TCI of Alabama, an electrical equipment recycling facility located about a half hour drive from Birmingham, AL. Thanks to Vortec’s cooling vests that concern has been resolved.

Cooling Vest Keeps Paint Booth Workers Safe and Comfortable
In Charlotte, NC, summer can be brutal, with temperatures regularly reaching over 90˚F. It’s hard to stand outside, harder to work outside, and harder still to work in a collision repair center, where the curing oven bakes the cars—and employees—after painting. After implementing the Vortec Cooling Vests, employees claimed "It helps immensely, I am significantly cooler and a lot more comfortable. I'm able to concentrate more on the task at hand!"

Safety and Comfort for Foundry Workers
In hot plant environments, employee safety and comfort is a high priority. At an aluminum billet manufacturing plant, Ohio Valley Aluminum Company (OVACO), temperatures in the pit area can reach up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer months. OVACO was presented with the challenge of keeping their workers cool and safe under these intense conditions. The solution was to provide their employees with Vortec Cooling Vests. These vests are cost-effective, portable, and do not interfere with ambient temperatures since heat is a necessity to produce high quality billets.

How does it work?

The VCV uses the same reliable vortex tube technology as the legacy Personal Air Conditioner to cool the vest. All models of the VCV can achieve temperature differentials - 45 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit from the inlet compressed air temperature using vortex tube technology.

In Vortex Tube technology, compressed air is forced through a generation chamber, which spins the air at a high rate of speed (1,000,000 rpm) into a vortex. The high-speed air heats up as it spins along the inner walls of the tube toward the control valve, where a percentage of hot, high air speed is permitted to exit at the valve.
The remainder of the now slower stream is forced to counter flow back through the center of the high-speed air stream into a second vortex. The slower moving inner vortex  gives off energy and supercools as it spins up the tube. The now chilled air passes through the center of the generation chamber, finally exiting into the vest as cold air.

VCV Specifications:
Vortec Cooling Vest ModelCoolingVest-LCoolingVest-XLCoolingVest-2XL
Cooling Capacity (BTU/hr)150025002500
Air Consumption @ 100 psig (scfm)253535
Temperature Drop or Change (⁰F)606060

More Information:

If you’d like to learn more about how the newly designed VCVs can positively impact your employees and operations, feel free to contact a sales associate from Vortec for pricing information or to answer any questions you may have. VCVs are also available for order online here.
Home > Blog > Upgraded Comfort with an Upgraded Design: The New Vortec Cooling Vest

Upgraded Comfort with an Upgraded Design: The New Vortec Cooling Vest

4/20/2022
With temperatures beginning to rise as we get closer to summer, it is important to make sure your employees are protected from heat-related illness in hot work environments. Personal cooling products can largely help in minimizing heat stress and fatigue. To keep employees comfortable, safe, and productive, employers turn to the newly designed Vortec Cooling Vests.  

The legacy Personal Air Conditioners were successful in keeping employees cool in extreme conditions, but when designing the new Vortec Cooling Vest (VCV), Vortec engineers kept the user in mind. The new perforated air vests are made up of a more flexible and lightweight material to ensure the user has full range of motion and is comfortable while receiving continuous cooling throughout the vest. The VCV can be worn under personal protective equipment and the temperature adjustment knob can be accessed easily – even with gloved hands – to ensure the user can adjust the temperature to their preferences.

Industry Wide Cooling Solution

Vortec Cooling Vests can be found in a variety of industries:
  • Construction
  • Agriculture
  • Warehousing
  • Marine services and shipbuilding
  • Iron and steel foundries
  • Industrial painting
  • Smelters
  • Boiler room workers
These are just a few of the top industries that VCVs can be used in, but don’t just take it from us, hear directly from some customers in those industries:
Providing Cooling Gear in Challenging Conditions
Keeping workers cool while protected from hazardous materials was a 10-year quest at TCI of Alabama, an electrical equipment recycling facility located about a half hour drive from Birmingham, AL. Thanks to Vortec’s cooling vests that concern has been resolved.

Cooling Vest Keeps Paint Booth Workers Safe and Comfortable
In Charlotte, NC, summer can be brutal, with temperatures regularly reaching over 90˚F. It’s hard to stand outside, harder to work outside, and harder still to work in a collision repair center, where the curing oven bakes the cars—and employees—after painting. After implementing the Vortec Cooling Vests, employees claimed "It helps immensely, I am significantly cooler and a lot more comfortable. I'm able to concentrate more on the task at hand!"

Safety and Comfort for Foundry Workers
In hot plant environments, employee safety and comfort is a high priority. At an aluminum billet manufacturing plant, Ohio Valley Aluminum Company (OVACO), temperatures in the pit area can reach up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer months. OVACO was presented with the challenge of keeping their workers cool and safe under these intense conditions. The solution was to provide their employees with Vortec Cooling Vests. These vests are cost-effective, portable, and do not interfere with ambient temperatures since heat is a necessity to produce high quality billets.

How does it work?

The VCV uses the same reliable vortex tube technology as the legacy Personal Air Conditioner to cool the vest. All models of the VCV can achieve temperature differentials - 45 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit from the inlet compressed air temperature using vortex tube technology.

In Vortex Tube technology, compressed air is forced through a generation chamber, which spins the air at a high rate of speed (1,000,000 rpm) into a vortex. The high-speed air heats up as it spins along the inner walls of the tube toward the control valve, where a percentage of hot, high air speed is permitted to exit at the valve.
The remainder of the now slower stream is forced to counter flow back through the center of the high-speed air stream into a second vortex. The slower moving inner vortex  gives off energy and supercools as it spins up the tube. The now chilled air passes through the center of the generation chamber, finally exiting into the vest as cold air.

VCV Specifications:
Vortec Cooling Vest ModelCoolingVest-LCoolingVest-XLCoolingVest-2XL
Cooling Capacity (BTU/hr)150025002500
Air Consumption @ 100 psig (scfm)253535
Temperature Drop or Change (⁰F)606060

More Information:

If you’d like to learn more about how the newly designed VCVs can positively impact your employees and operations, feel free to contact a sales associate from Vortec for pricing information or to answer any questions you may have. VCVs are also available for order online here.