Assessment of Insulation against Contact Heat and Radiant Heat of Composites with TiO2-ZrO2-Al and Parylene C Coatings Intended for Protective Gloves Supported by Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

This article concerns research on the use of two types of coatings (parylene C and TiO2-ZrO2-Al) in multilayer composites with potential use in metallurgical protective gloves to improve their insulation against contact heat and radiation heat. To evaluate the thermal safety of the glove user, the composites were examined under the conditions of exposure to contact heat (using a heating cylinder, according to EN ISO 12127-1) and radiant heat (using a copper plate calorimeter, according to EN ISO 6942). Moreover, heat transfer through composites exposed to the heat of a hot plate was examined using thermography. The experimental studies were supported by heat transfer simulations through 3D models of composites. The contact heat method showed that composites achieved insulation against contact heat for both contact temperatures Tc, but composites with parylene C have a longer tt of 9 s (for Tc = 100 °C) and 7 s (250 °C) compared to composites with TiO2-ZrO2-Al. The radiant heat method showed that composites achieved the fourth (highest) level of RHTI24 under exposure to a radiant heat flux of 20 kW m−2. The modeling results showed that the parylene C coating increases the thermal barrier of the composite by approximately 10%, while the TiO2-ZrO2-Al coating increases it by 2%. The applied research techniques demonstrated the usefulness of using both types of coatings in the design of metallurgical protective gloves based on multilayer composites.