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Quantitatively assessing the effect of exposure time and cooling time of fabric assemblies representative of those used in firefighter clothing on the thermal protection
Author(s) -
He Jiazhen,
Li Jun
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
fire and materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-1018
pISSN - 0308-0501
DOI - 10.1002/fam.2341
Subject(s) - clothing , thermal protection , thermal insulation , thermal , environmental science , nuclear engineering , materials science , thermal comfort , thermal energy storage , composite material , engineering , meteorology , thermodynamics , physics , archaeology , layer (electronics) , history
Summary In addition to direct thermal energy from a heat source, a large amount of thermal energy stored in clothing will continuously transfer to skin during the cooling of fabric assemblies. In real situations, the durations of thermal exposure and cooling in protective clothing vary. Eight exposure times ranging from 6 to 27 s and a maximum duration of 80 s cooling time were used. To quantitatively investigate the levels of thermal protection, a new index was applied. The effects of exposure and cooling times on the grade of thermal protection were discussed. The effective cooling time was found to be 9–40 s for the selected fabric systems. In addition, a safety time region was identified and proposed as an indicator to evaluate the thermal protective insulation of fabric assemblies. The data analyses clearly showed that in addition to the inherent properties of the fabric materials, the levels of protection were not only related to exposure time but also depended upon the cooling time. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.