Abstract
This paper aims to develop a numerical model to predict heat stress of firefighter under low-level thermal radiation. The model integrated a modified multi-layer clothing model with a human thermoregulation model. We took the coupled radiative and conductive heat transfer in the clothing, the size-dependent heat transfer in the air gaps, and the controlling active and controlled passive thermal regulation in human body into consideration. The predicted core temperature and mean skin temperature from the model showed a good agreement with the experimental results. Parametric study was conducted and the result demonstrated that the radiative intensity had a significant influence on the physiological heat strain. The existence of air gap showed positive effect on the physiological heat strain when air gap size is small. However, when the size of air gap exceeds 6 mm, a different trend was observed due to the occurrence of natural convection. Additionally, the time length for the existence of the physiological heat strain was greater than the existence of the skin burn under various heat exposures. The findings obtained in this study provide a better understanding of the physiological strain of firefighter and shed light on textile material engineering for achieving higher protective performance.
Highlights
Skin burn is one of the most common thermal injuries in firefighting and emergency rescue
It was reported that the central temperature for the heated region of protective fabric was higher than the surrounding temperatures, the thermal energy from the central zone of protective fabric could be transferred to the surrounding zone37
The moisture transfer in protective fabric presented a complex impact on the heat transfer in different heat exposure conditions38
Summary
Skin burn is one of the most common thermal injuries in firefighting and emergency rescue. The protective clothing can provide a positive effect on preventing the skin burn and the physiological strain by resisting heat transfer from thermal environment to human body. The physiological strain of firefighter can be investigated based on human trials in a simulated operating state of firefighter The physiological reaction, such as heart rate, oxygen consumption, blood lactate concentration, skin temperature and core temperature, were measured to assess the human physiological strain in thermal environment. Considering the safety and well-being of the trial subjects, the human physiological strain was only examined in the absence of environmental heat or in relatively low intensity heat environments that are not enough to simulate the risk of heat stroke of firefighter in common fire scenes. It is extremely important to develop a safe evaluation method for investigating the human physiological strain of firefighter in a simulated fire environment
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