Abstract
Personal protective equipment for firefighters can effectively prevent skin burns and ensure firefighters' safety. Considering a variety of fire environments faced by a firefighter, the present study is devoted to showing the role of the inter-layer fabric airgap and its variation in thickness on skin burns under high intensity heat flux. The present numerical model is formulated by considering a coupled conduction and radiation heat interaction in the porous fabric medium and the Pennes bioheat transfer model for the multi-layered skin. The study considers the effect of variation in airgap thickness, variation in heat transfer coefficient, and duration of exposure on the thermal damage of the firefighter's skin subjected to different harsh thermal environments. The results found that increasing the thickness of AG1 and AG2 does not yield a significant impact during the exposure time. Conversely, AG3 and AG4 lead to considerable temperature reductions at the basal layer, with AG3 causing a decrease of 2.6 °C to 2.9 °C and AG4 causing a decrease of 11.9 °C to 17.0 °C under all exposure conditions. Additionally, when the heat transfer coefficient increases during post-exposure, temperature drops of 9.17 °C to 10.72 °C, 9.81 °C to 11.46 °C, 10.0 °C to 11.64 °C, and 8.68 °C to 10.07 °C are observed for AG1, AG2, AG3, and AG4, respectively, across all exposure conditions. However, both the airgaps have a substantial effect on thermal protection during the post exposure period. In addition, the nature of the variation of stored and transmitted energy in fabric assembly shows an opposite trend during both the exposure and post exposure period in contrast to the third and fourth airgaps for all the considered thermal environments.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.