Effect of nano silver coating on thermal protective performance of firefighter protective clothing

2018 ◽  
Vol 110 (6) ◽  
pp. 847-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jawad Naeem ◽  
Adnan Mazari ◽  
Lukas Volesky ◽  
Funda Mazari
2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (06) ◽  
pp. 458-465
Author(s):  
NAEEM JAWAD ◽  
ADNAN MAZARI ◽  
AKCAGUN ENGIN ◽  
HAVELKA ANTONIN ◽  
KUS ZDENEK

This experimental work is an effort to seek the possibility of improvement in thermal protective performance of firefighter protective clothing at different levels of heat flux density. Improvement in thermal protective performance means enhancement in the time of exposure against the heat flux, which will provide extra time to firefighters to perform their duties without suffering from severe injuries. Four different multilayer combinations of firefighter protective clothing were investigated. Each combination consists of outer shell, moisture barrier and thermal liner. Aerogel sheet was also employed as a substitute to thermal barrier. Initially, properties like thermal resistance, thermal conductivity, and water vapor resistance of multilayer fabric assemblies were investigated. Later on these combinations were exposed to different levels of radiant heat flux density i.e. at 10, 20 and 30 kW/m2 as per ISO 6942 standard. It was noted that those combinations in which aerogel blanket was used as thermal barrier acquire greater thermal resistance, water vapor resistance and have less transmitted heat flux density values.


2017 ◽  
Vol 88 (8) ◽  
pp. 847-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Zhang ◽  
Guowen Song ◽  
Haitao Ren ◽  
Juan Cao

Current firefighter protective clothing is composed of multilayer fabric systems. The outer shell fabrics inevitably become wet in the process of firefighters performing their duties, and sweat may also increase moisture in the inner layers of protective clothing. In this study, two kinds of outer shell fabrics (aramid IIIA fabric and aramid 1313 and flame-retardant viscose-blended fabric) and two kinds of thermal liner fabrics with different thicknesses were selected. Three wetness conditions were simulated for the outer shell fabric, thermal liner fabric and both fabrics together. A modified thermal protective performance (TPP) tester was applied to assess TPP provided by these wetted fabrics; in addition, second-degree skin burn time was predicted and absorbed energy indexes were calculated. The regression method was employed to create fitting curves for absorbed energy and second-degree burn time in different configurations and the Pearson correlation was established to analyze their relationship, in which the lowest R2 value could reach 0.9122 and p-values were all much less than 0.05. Performance results for both wet conditions indicated that outer shell moisture and a thicker thermal liner have a positive and increased negative effect, respectively, on fabric TPP. When the sample S-3-D (aramid 1313 and flame-retardant viscose-blended fabric, moisture barrier and the thin thermal liner) was both wetted in the outer shell and thermal liner, its second-degree burn time was improved by 12.8% over performance in dry conditions. These findings may have important applications for the design and manufacture of optimal protective performance clothing systems.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jawad Naeem ◽  
Adnan Ahmed Mazari ◽  
Antonin Havelka

A fire fighter garment is multilayer protective clothing with an outer shell, moisture barrier and thermal barrier, respectively. Fire fighters encounter different levels of radiant heat flux while performing their duties. This review study acknowledges the importance and performance of fire fighter protective clothing when subjected to a low level of radiation heat flux as well as the influence of air gaps and their respective position on the thermal insulation behaviour of multilayer protective clothing. Thermal insulation plays a vital role in the thermal comfort and protective performance of fire fighter protective clothing (FFPC). The main emphasis of this study was to analyse the performance of FFPC under different levels of radiant heat flux and how the exposure time of fire fighters can be enhanced before acquiring burn injuries. The preliminary portion of this study deals with the modes of heat transportation within textile fabrics, the mechanism of thermal equilibrium of the human body and the thermal protective performance of firefighter protective clothing. The middle  portion is concerned with thermal insulation and prediction of the physiological load of  FFPC. The last section deals with numerical models of heat transmission through firefighter protective clothing assemblies and possible utility of aerogels and Phase Change Materials  (PCMs) for enhancing the thermal protective performance of FFPC.


2017 ◽  
Vol 730 ◽  
pp. 595-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Ling He ◽  
Zhi Cai Yu

Moisture is widely recognized as one of the most important factors that influencing thermal comfort and thermal protective performance of firefighters. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effect of liquid moisture on the transfer wicking behavior from the wet underwear fabric to the dry outerwear layer within two-layer fabric assemblies, which is typically used by wildland firefighters. The obtained results indicated that the transfer wicking behavior between the entire two-layer clothing systems selected is not very obvious. Results indicated that the transfer wicking ratio was low 5 percent of water content initially held in wet fabric. The greater amount of liquid water initially held in two-layer fabric assemblies, the greater the amount of water transferred. The effect of moisture level on air permeability of bi-layer fabric constructions associated with thermo-physiological comfort properties was also investigated. Results show that the air permeability of multilayer fabrics decreased with an increase of moisture content. Compared to having no water, the air permeability reduced to 50 percent when the water content reached up to 70%. The perception gained from this work could serve as technical basis for further development of high-performance firefighter protective clothing.


Author(s):  
Jung-Hyun Kim ◽  
Do-Hee Kim ◽  
Joo-Young Lee ◽  
Aitor Coca

Firefighter protective clothing (FPC) provides barrier protection from hazardous materials. Two of the important performance factors tested for FPC are total heat loss (THL) and thermal protective performance (TPP). The present study evaluated the relationship between THL and TPP, and tested its subsequent influence on burn injury prediction via the flame-engulfment manikin test, using three FPC samples from the United States, Europe, and South Korea. The study results showed an inverse relationship between THL and TPP (r=-.949, p<.001). Predicted total area of second and third degree burn injury was 7.2±1.6, 19.7±4.1, and 5.0±1.0% for the United States, European, and South Korean FPC, respectively, which was significantly explained by both THL and TPP (F=34.630, p=0.001, R2=.920). The flame manikin test results showed that affected burn injury areas are not uniform over the body, but more frequent on the head and limbs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 89 (16) ◽  
pp. 3244-3259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Mandal ◽  
Simon Annaheim ◽  
Andre Capt ◽  
Jemma Greve ◽  
Martin Camenzind ◽  
...  

Fabric systems used in firefighters' thermal protective clothing should offer optimal thermal protective and thermo-physiological comfort performances. However, fabric systems that have very high thermal protective performance have very low thermo-physiological comfort performance. As these performances are inversely related, a categorization tool based on these two performances can help to find the best balance between them. Thus, this study is aimed at developing a tool for categorizing fabric systems used in protective clothing. For this, a set of commercially available fabric systems were evaluated and categorized. The thermal protective and thermo-physiological comfort performances were measured by standard tests and indexed into a normalized scale between 0 (low performance) and 1 (high performance). The indices dataset was first divided into three clusters by using the k-means algorithm. Here, each cluster had a centroid representing a typical Thermal Protective Performance Index (TPPI) value and a typical Thermo-physiological Comfort Performance Index (TCPI) value. By using the ISO 11612:2015 and EN 469:2014 guidelines related to the TPPI requirements, the clustered fabric systems were divided into two groups: Group 1 (high thermal protective performance-based fabric systems) and Group 2 (low thermal protective performance-based fabric systems). The fabric systems in each of these TPPI groups were further categorized based on the typical TCPI values obtained from the k-means clustering algorithm. In this study, these categorized fabric systems showed either high or low thermal protective performance with low, medium, or high thermo-physiological comfort performance. Finally, a tool for using these categorized fabric systems was prepared and presented graphically. The allocations of the fabric systems within the categorization tool have been verified based on their properties (e.g., thermal resistance, weight, evaporative resistance) and construction parameters (e.g., woven, nonwoven, layers), which significantly affect the performance. In this way, we identified key characteristics among the categorized fabric systems which can be used to upgrade or develop high-performance fabric systems. Overall, the categorization tool developed in this study could help clothing manufacturers or textile engineers select and/or develop appropriate fabric systems with maximum thermal protective performance and thermo-physiological comfort performance. Thermal protective clothing manufactured using this type of newly developed fabric system could provide better occupational health and safety for firefighters.


2013 ◽  
Vol 821-822 ◽  
pp. 317-320
Author(s):  
Xiao Wen Luo ◽  
Zhi Qing Shu ◽  
Jun Li

To reveal specific wearing property and principle of polysulfonamide (PSA) blended fabric, this paper aims to make a comparative study of the performance of new PSA blended fabric based on mechanical property, thermal protective performance and, at the same time, explore the performance gap between the different fabrics. Based on the gray fixed weight clustering analysis of gray system theory, several PSA blended fabric have been proved with excellent comprehensive performance, these provided a basis for the selection of thermal protective clothing fabrics.


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