On Demand Thermal Protection (ODTP): A New Approach for Designing Garments Exposed to Flash Flame Incidents

Abstract

Soldiers, first responders and other high risk occupations such as power line technicians are routinely exposed to dangerous situations where severe burn injuries are possible. Standard flame resistant (FR) fabrics provide minimal burn protection when exposed to a flash flame incident. As a result, improvement in thermal protection is desperately needed and remains an ongoing subject of research and development. A simplified one dimensional physical model composed of a muscle layer, skin/fat layer, air gap(s) and fabric layer(s) is used to model heat transfer entering the body covered by a garment that is exposed to a flash flame. Heat transfer within the skin and muscle layers is modeled by combined conduction, metabolic heat generation and blood perfusion by a recently developed modification to the heat equation termed the bio-heat equation. Boundary conditions include a fixed temperature (core body temperature) at the inside of the muscle layer and combined convection and radiation from the flame on the outside of the fabric. The heat equation is solved by discretizing the domain in one dimension and using a finite volume approach to derive the finite difference equations. This model is an initial step to be used to provide an assessment of common FR garments with respect to both comfort in ambient conditions and protection during a flash flame. It also provides for parametric analysis to determine ideal thermo-physical properties, fabric thicknesses and layering for better protection during flash flame incidents. Estimates for time to burn injury from the numerical model is presented with experimental results using live mannequin flame tests (ASTMF-1930), standard vertical flame tests (ISO-17492) and a non-standard flame test with combined convection and radiation heat fluxes up to 85 kW/m2. The main effort of this study revolves around an initial working design for a dynamic garment termed On Demand Thermal Protection (ODTP). The primary focus of the design is the development of a thermistor circuit embedded in a protective garment to act as an electric sensor for rapidly deploying the necessary thermal protection that is needed as predicted by the numerical model instantaneously in the event of a flash flame incident. An initial prototype is being developed with a focus on designing the thermistor circuit to mechanically actuate protective components in a flash-flame environment. Concepts include rapidly releasing a pressurized flame retardant fluid through vinyl tubing sewn into a garment and deploying a protective barrier around the face and neck when the thermistor circuit detects a sudden change in heat transfer. A summary of the prototype along with experimental testing to date compared to the theoretical predictions from the model described above is presented.