Abstract
Burn injury is one of the most common injury among firefighters. Moisture comes from perspiration or hose spray absorbed in the personal protective clothing and steam burn injury occur with continuous heat exposure. The heat transfer from the heat flux is enhanced due to transformation material properties that holds high thermal conductivity and heat conductivity. Finite element method is used to predict steam burn injury among firefighters. The model is developed in 1dimensional cylinderical quarter geometry representing the human limb. It is discovered the skin temperature 10°C increases with wet material than dry material. The pain threshold at the lower arm of wet material condition is formed 40second rapidly compare to dry material condition. The first degree burn occur at t=9.5second sooner than the dry condition t=25second. The skin temperature increases with the wet material resulting severe skin burn. It is found that the wet personal protective clothing had compromised its thermal protection. Therefore, firefighters will experience high risk of thermal hazard.
Highlights
Burn injury is one of the most common injury among firefighters
The amount of moisture absorbed in fabrics will evaporates and change phase from liquid to gas.(Barker, Guerth-Schacher, Grimes, & Hamouda, 2006) used experimental thermal testing at 6.3kW/m2 to study the effect of the absorbed moisture on the personal protective clothing thermal performance. (Li, Lu, Li, Wang, & Zhou, 2012) found that the relative humidity in the air gap was significant to skin temperature leading to steam burn injury
The pain threshold begins at 44°C, the predicted first degree burn at 48°C and second degree burn start to form at 55°C
Summary
Burn injury is one of the most common injury among firefighters. Moisture comes from perspiration or hose spray absorbed in the personal protective clothing and steam burn injury occur with continuous heat exposure. From 2007 to 2012, firefighters who suffered from skin burn injuries received them most frequently in the head area (38%), the arm or hand (30%), the neck or shoulder area (16%), and the leg or foot (8%) (Karter, 2012). It is shown from the etiology of injuries to firefighters that skin burns were responsible for injury (65%) and flame burns caused injury to 20% of firefighters (Kahn, Patel, Lentz, & Bell, 2012).The protective clothing material consist of three layers the outer layer, moisture barrier and thermal liner. The aim of this study is to predict steam burn injury for firefighter’s personal protective clothing using finite element method
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