The Design of a Surface Heat Flux Transducer for Use in Fabric Thermal Protection Testing

Grimes, Robert V.; Mulligan, J.H.; Hamouda, H.; Barker, Roger L.; Soroka, Anthony John

doi:10.1520/stp14097s

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…As demonstrated in the literature , the temperature rise of the transducer's copper disk with a finite thickness was almost linear, while the human skin would respond thermally as a semi‐infinite solid having a complex temperature rise curve, which was validated in Figure . It was also apparent that there would be a point of intersection as time progressed; however, within the 4‐s exposure, the temperature response of human skin was remarkably greater than the sensor.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…Temporal temperature on the sensor surface was recorded during the 4‐s fire exposure. The equations to calculate the incident heat flux of the copper disk are described as follows :

q = ρ C_{P} C_{L} L \frac{d T ((), t)}{normald t} + K_{L} ((), T ((), t) - T_{i})

T ((), 0) = T_{\infty} = T_{i}

where ρ is the density of copper, kg/m 3 ; C P is the specific heat of copper, J/g K; C L is the thickness factor of copper, which can be determined by a known square heat source exposure and initial heat flux measurements; L is the copper thickness, m; and K L is the heat loss coefficient, kW/m 2 K.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies of numerical simulation mainly focused on the one‐dimensional modeling of heat transfer from heat source through fabric and skin according to the bench‐scale tests. Grimes developed a surface heat flux transducer for fabric thermal protection testing and compared the temperature rise of sensor and skin under a constant heat source of 25 kW/m 2 . The results indicated that the temperature of copper sensor was lower than that of the skin in the first few seconds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulating the thermal response of the flame manikin with different materials exposed to flash fire by CFD

Tian

2016

Fire and Materials

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SUMMARYTo investigate the differences of thermal response between heat flux sensors and human skin on the flame manikin, a three-dimensional heat transfer model was developed and validated by the flame manikin system. The initial temperature of the model with sensor material was set to 300 K, and the model with skin material was set as the real condition. Simulated results validated the effectiveness of heat flux measured by the sensor. The incident heat flux through the measured surface was influenced by the different emissivity of the human skin and experimental sensors. Significant difference was found for the temperature response of these two kinds of materials within 4-s fire exposure. The heat flux measured by sensor or the simulated results with actual human skin parameters could be used as the input boundary condition of the skin heat transfer model for Henriques's skin burn prediction. It is necessary to study the actual skin thermal response by experiments, where the 3D model established in this study could be used as the supplementary means for skin simulant sensor development. These findings will also be adopted in our following study of skin burn prediction module in the 3D full-scale simulation platform. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Fire-resistant protective clothing is the only barrier that the firefighters could rely on to decrease thermal hazards [2]. Thermal protective performance of the fireproof fabric or garment is a crucial index, which could represent its protective capacity for firefighters. Bench-scale tests, i.e., TPP test [3], RPP test [4], and full-scale flame manikin test [5,6], are the advanced methods to evaluate the thermal protective performance of the fire-resistant fabrics and garments. Burn injuries or time required to skin burns are commonly predicted by these systems according to the temperature or cumulative amount of energy measured by the thermal sensor.Literatures indicate that many thermal sensors are capable of predicting the heat flux transmitted through human bodies under fire exposures, i.e., copper calorimeter, embedded sensor and skin simulant sensor [7]. The heat flux is calculated generally depending on the temperature rise, thermodynamic properties and construction of the sensor, where the temperature rise is closely related to the sensor properties.As for the bench-scale tests, fire-resistant fabric is usually put in the middle of the heat source and test sensor; hence, the sensor could measure the temperature on the backside of the fabric. The cumulative Fire Mater. 2016 Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002DOI: 10. /fam.2363 energy exposure value could be calculated to predict skin burns [8,9]. Figure 1(a) shows the thermal sensor used in the bench-scale test, which is the thermal capacitance calorimeter with copper slug recommended in ASTM E457 [10]. The exposed surface of the copper slug calorimeter is paint with a thin black coating with an absorptivity of 0.9 or greater, which is designed to absorb ...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…Temporal temperature on the sensor surface was recorded during the 4‐s fire exposure. The equations to calculate the incident heat flux of the copper disk are described as follows :

q = ρ C_{P} C_{L} L \frac{d T ((), t)}{normald t} + K_{L} ((), T ((), t) - T_{i})

T ((), 0) = T_{\infty} = T_{i}

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulating the thermal response of the flame manikin with different materials exposed to flash fire by CFD

Tian

2016

Fire and Materials

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“…29,32 The basic features include (1) the closest representation of the human skin, (2) small and light-weight to minimize the storage of heat within the sensor under repetitive and highly intensive fire exposures, (3) inexpensive, (4) accurate (within AE 10%) and reliable to measure the incident convective and radiative heat flux in an operating range of 0-105 kW/m 2 , (5) rapid for proper data acquisition, (6) immune from noise produced under the convective and radiative heat exposures, (7) rugged/durable enough to withstand repeated fire exposures and cleaning, (8) minimally impacted by the thermal history (heat sink, temperature gradient) of any overlaying materials used in the sensor, and finally (9) easy to fabricate or easily available in the market. 27,[29][30][31]33 2…”

Section: Development Of Sensors and Their Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, they can be practically used to evaluate the protective performance provided by the clothing; this performance evaluation can be performed on fabrics by using the bench-scale test or on garment by using the full-scale instrumented flash fire manikin test. [27][28][29] Normally, five different thermal sensors -copper calorimeter or TPP sensor, embedded sensor, skin simulant sensor, PyroCal sensor, and water-cooled sensor -are commonly used for performance evaluation of fabrics and/or garments. 27,28,30,31 The TPP sensor is a slug-type copper disk with secured thermocouple and is widely used in evaluating the performance of protective clothing using bench-scale tests; the embedded sensor is a polymeric thin-skin model with an embedded thermocouple developed by DuPont Õ for use in their full-scale instrumented flash fire manikin (Thermo-Man Õ ) test; the skin simulant sensor is an inorganic skin model with surface-mounted thermocouple developed by the University of Alberta, Canada, for use in their full-scale instrumented flash fire manikin (Harry Burn) test; the PyroCal sensor is a modified and improved TPP sensor with a slug-type insulated copper disk and secured thermocouple developed by North Carolina State University (NCSU), USA, for use in their full-scale instrumented flash fire manikin (PyroMan) test; the water-cooled sensor [Schemidt-Boelter/Gardon (standardized by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA) and Prototype (developed by NCSU, USA)] is a constantan foil or copper disk with attached cooling effect, and it is widely used for the calibration of other sensors -TPP, embedded, skin simulant, and PyroCal.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal sensors for performance evaluation of protective clothing against heat and fire: a review

Mandal

Song

2014

Textile Research Journal

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Many thermal sensors can simulate and predict the heat flux transmitted through human bodies under hazardous fire exposures. These sensors are usually used to evaluate the thermal protective performance of firefighters’/industrial-workers’ clothing. This paper presents a thorough review on the latest thermal sensors and their applications in evaluating the performance of protective clothing. Several important aspects associated with the sensor development – constructional features, working principles, and characteristics – were discussed and their applications in protective textile materials testing were summarized. The application procedures of sensors both in heat source calibration and heat flux measurement were introduced. Finally, several research cases were explored. This review could help in understanding basics of the current thermal sensors and their nature in testing protective clothing performance.

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Thermal protective clothing

Hamouda

2005

Handbook of Environmental Degradation of Materials

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The Design of a Surface Heat Flux Transducer for Use in Fabric Thermal Protection Testing

Cited by 8 publications

References 3 publications

Simulating the thermal response of the flame manikin with different materials exposed to flash fire by CFD

Simulating the thermal response of the flame manikin with different materials exposed to flash fire by CFD

Thermal sensors for performance evaluation of protective clothing against heat and fire: a review

Thermal protective clothing

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