Abstract
This paper presents a model for heat and moisture transfer through firefighters' protective clothing (FPC) during radiation exposure. The model, which accounts for air gaps in the FPC as well as heat transfer through human skin, investigates the effect of different initial moisture contents on the thermal insulation performance of FPC. Temperature, water vapor density, and the volume fraction of liquid water profiles were monitored during the simulation, and the heat quantity absorbed by water evaporation was calculated. Then the maximum durations of heat before the wearer acquires first- and second-degree burns were calculated based on the bioheat transfer equation and the Henriques equation. The results show that both the moisture weight in each layer and the total moisture weight increase linearly within a given environmental humidity level. The initial moisture content in FPC samples significantly influenced the maximum water vapor density. The first- and second-degree burn injury time increase 16 sec and 18 sec when the RH increases from 0% to 90%. The total quantity of heat accounted for by water evaporation was about 10% when the relative humidity (RH) is 80%. Finally, a linear relationship was identified between initial moisture content and the human skin burn injury time before suffering first- and second-degree burn injuries.
Highlights
Firefighters’ protective clothing (FPC) constitutes critically important equipment in firefighting
We describe a simulation approach that can characterize the influence of initial moisture content on the heat insulation performance of multilayer FPC materials with air gaps between each layer
The FPC material is composed of four layers: the outer shell (OS), the moisture barrier layer (MB), the thermal barrier layer (TB), and the comfort layer (CL)
Summary
Firefighters’ protective clothing (FPC) constitutes critically important equipment in firefighting. The moisture content in FPC material significantly affects the wearer’s thermal and moisture comfort. These effects have sparked considerable interest in researching the mechanisms of heat and moisture transfer in FPC materials [3,4,5]. Moisture contained in FPC material usually results from human sweat, penetration of outside water during a rescue, or moisture in the settled environment [6,7,8]. Moisture in the fabric can limit the amount of energy transferred to human skin. Recent research has examined the effects of moisture that comes from human sweat and outside water [10,11,12]
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