1 Abstract

Fabrics that are used in firefighter turnout gear arespecifically designed to offer protection from various extreme conditions thatmay arise during fire exposures. To optimize the design of these garments and understandthe conditions for which protection is offered requires knowing how thetransient response of the fabrics is affected by the many possible factors thatarise. A model was recently developed that describes the heat and mass(moisture) transfer across protective fabrics subjected to incident thermalconditions and illustrated the importance of including moisture transporteffects even under low incident flux conditions. This model is now used tostudy the transient response of protective fabrics to high intensity, shortduration heat flux exposures. Numerical simulations of a Thermal ProtectivePerformance test were conducted for two fabrics used as outer shell materialsfor turnout garments. Predicted results were found to favorably agree withexperimental measurements, with Thermal Protective Performance ratings from themodel within 6% of measured ratings. The ability of the model to describe thetemperature across the entire thickness of the fabric rather than simply present a sensor response during an exposure provides additional information that can be furtherutilized to predict the thermal degradation of the materials.

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OriginallyPublished at National Institute Of Standards and Technology

About the Authors:

The authors are associated with Fire Research Division, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD.

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