Cats taste cream of travel

Strathclyde University engineering student Neil Black wants to make sure that travel is cool for cats, writes Olga Wojtas.

Mr Black, a fourth-year student in Strathclyde's design, manufacture and engineering management department, has unveiled a climate-controlled cat transporter at an exhibition to showcase final-year students' inventions.

He believes pet passports will mean that animals will be taken on longer journeys and that cats are more likely to be left alone in cars during long journeys abroad.

He has designed a self-contained lightweight unit that looks like a cool box. It is thermally insulated, which allows the internal temperature to be kept at 18xC, regardless of the temperature outside.

The cooling system uses the Peltier effect, a thermo-electric cooler in which an electric current passes through solid-state heat pumps allowing heat transfer from one side of the transporter to the other.

Mr Black's initial research included a survey of cat transporters already on the market and an investigation of the metabolism of cats.

He found that cats were happiest in temperatures of between 18xC and 26xC, had a body temperature of just over 37xC, and that they generated about 7 watts of heat.

His calculations for an adequate air flow in the box also took into account the average weight of cats, three kilos, and their respiratory rate of between 20 and 30 breaths per minute.

He decided to use co-injection moulding to manufacture the box, a process that creates a sandwich of material.The outer layers are a tough skin of polycarbonate, a light but hard-wearing material used, for example, for phones, while the inner layer is cellular polystyrene.

While the final design includes access to daylight, a cat invited to test a prototype box was unimpressed by there being no window.

It left its claw marks on the inside, but suffered no ill effects. Mr Black believes that the design could be developed as a dog transporter, a potentially bigger market.

Supervisor Gordon Mair, a senior lecturer in the department, praised Mr Black for tackling all aspects of the product from design and manufacturing to marketing.