Abstract
Abstract In this paper, the safety and thermal comfort of protective clothing used by firefighters was analyzed. Three-dimensional geometry and morphology models of real multilayer assemblies used in thermal protective clothing were mapped by selected Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software. In the designed assembly models, different scales of the resolution were used for the particular layers – a homogenization for nonwoven fabrics model and designing the geometry of the individual yarns in the model of woven fabrics. Then, the finite volume method to simulate heat transfer through the assemblies caused by their exposure to the flame was applied. Finally, the simulation results with experimental measurements conducted according to the EN ISO 9151 were compared. Based on both the experimental and simulation results, parameters describing the tested clothing protective features directly affecting the firefighter’s safety were determined. As a result of the experiment and simulations, comparable values of these parameters were determined, which could show that used methods are an efficient tool in studying the thermal properties of multilayer protective clothing.
Highlights
The problem of thermal comfort is inextricably linked to the issue of heat balance between the human body and its environment
Each phenomenon is conditioned on the characteristics of the human body including metabolism, temperature, sweat rate, breathing rate, as well as the environment described in terms of air temperature, heat radiation, relative humidity, and velocity of airflow
The finite volume method was carried out using Solidworks Flow Simulation 2014 software to analyze the heat transfer through the tested assembly
Summary
The problem of thermal comfort is inextricably linked to the issue of heat balance between the human body and its environment. Properties of the copper plate, such as heat conductance or thermal capacity, deviate considerably from the human skin This means that the results of testing the thermal protective properties of clothing obtained by this method may not reflect real situations. Many studies have been undertaken to develop new materials for the manufacturing of protective clothing as well as to create heat transfer models for the prediction of their thermal properties [5,6,7,8,9]. One such model was proposed by Torvi [10] for textiles under high heat flux conditions. Layers C and D are the thermal insulations, while Layer E is the lining
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