This giant ice pack has proven pretty useless over the last 15 years. It was for transporting lipos in hot weather but the problems with it are heat not transferring to it, inefficient use of space, deforming into an inefficient shape when frozen. It has never been used very effectively. Lions have used smaller ice packs very effectively for GPU cooling, since a GPU normally goes full speed for only a short time every day. The big ice pack would only be useful in large quantities, in a gigantic cooler.
So the question was what to do with it besides sending it to chinese landfill. The leading idea is some kind of suit for an animal to wear. It would circulate water around the ice pack, then in water pipes around the animal. It would be pretty heavy to carry around, with the water pump & battery. It could work if the animal was stationary. Another problem is peristalsis pumps wear out & start leaking.
Another idea might be an ice powered air conditioner. Its shape is still the least efficient for heat transfer. It could be melted & the fluid transferred to some smaller containers but FDM structures are not water tight. Any other structure is more expensive than pre-filled ice packs. There are pre filled ice sticks. It's 1 of those things which intuitively could serve a purpose one day but never has & it takes $1000 in real estate.
A big application would be a body suit worn in an un airconditioned apartment. Cooling just an arm or neck would be a big win. It would be like a neck pillow but a simple tube that connected on 1 side & made a bunch of U turns on each side, crossing behind the neck before returning on the entry side.
Another idea is an ice cooled mouse pad. This too would involve a heat transfer from a big ice box to a thin surface.
Holding or resting the pack on the chest alone is a pretty good source of cooling when standing at a desk, but not every efficient. The most efficient way to cool down is spraying water around the neck. The ice pack on the chest could be a passive way to cool down while sleeping.
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A few experiments in hot weather showed it cools a lion for 1 hour & it not as effective for the amount of energy used to freeze it as spraying water. It'll eventually be poured into a used salad container to document the innards & sent to chinese landfill.
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