Different types of fire-protetcive clothing, testing instrument presented

1. Study on Fire Protective Clothing
Presented By-
Sandeep Kumar Maurya
Rasujit Chongdar
Sumona Chakrabarti
Department of Textile and Fiber Engineering
SCIENCE OF CLOTHING COMFORT
TXL-750
Presented to-
Prof. Apurba Das

2. Introduction

3. Scenario of Fires Accidents in India
 Approx. 25000 deaths every year (66 persons /day)
 As per the Indian Insurance Companies- 45% of the claims are due to fire
losses (Rs.1000 crores lost)
Number of death due to fire accident by causes

4. Basic Principle of Fire Protective Clothing Design
Microclimate
Thermal Environment
(Thermal Energy, Heat)
Metabolic-Heat+ Vapour
Following points should be kept in
mind-
 Flammability behavior of
fabrics/fibres
 Melting and softening temperature
of fibres
 Comfortability of fabric

5. Fire Protective Clothing
Flame Retardant Fabric
Flame Retardant Chemicals
Image courtesy- https://www.slideshare.net/abhibft/flame-retardant-finishes-72311112
Flame Resistant Fabric
Inherently Flame-Resistant fibres
Image courtesy- https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/flame-resistant-
fabric-11664865991.html
Criteria to select the fire-
retardant/resistant fibres
Limiting Oxygen Index(LOI)- The minimum amount of oxygen required to burn these fibres (synthetic/natural).
LOI value should be greater than 21% , called as a fire retardant/ resistant fibres.

6. Development of Fire Fighter’s clothing
Ref.-Davis, Rick, et al. "Accelerated weathering of polyaramid and polybenzimidazole firefighter protective clothing fabrics." Polymer Degradation and Stability 95.9 (2010): 1642-1654.
 Outer layer
 Resistant to fires
 Maintain the integrity of thermal protective layer
 Prevents water ingress, cut, stab, tear and abrasion hazards
 Middle Layer
 Does not allow any penetration of hot liquids and steam.
 Allow the transfer of sweat-vapor from firefighters’ bodies to their
ambient environment
 Thermal Liner( face cloth + batting cloth)
 Enhances the overall thermal insulation characteristics of firefighters’
clothing

7. Skin Burn Injuries
heat transfer through fabric-air gap-skin layer system
Ref.-Talukdar, Prabal, Apurba Das, and Ramasamy Alagirusamy. "Heat and mass transfer through thermal protective clothing–A review." International Journal of Thermal Sciences 106 (2016): 32-56.
Image courtesy-https://burnsurvivor.com/about-us/
 Most common type
 Only outer(Epidermis) layer
affected
 Results in blister and accumulation of
fluid
 Epidermal and dermal layers are
affected and healing takes some
weeks
 Results in the damage of regenerative
cells and affect basal layer.
 Healing is not possible naturally

8. Selected Research Papers
 Kothari, V. K., and S. Chakraborty. "Protective performance of thermal protective clothing assemblies exposed to different radiant heat fluxes." Fibers and
Polymers 17.5 (2016): 809-814.
 Zhu, F. L., et al. "Enhancing the thermal protective performance of firefighters' protective fabrics by incorporating phase change materials." Fibres & Textiles
in Eastern Europe (2015): 68-73
 Roguski, Jacek, et al. "Comparison of requirements and directions of development of methods for testing protective clothing for firefighting."
Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe 5 (119) (2016): 132-136.
 Fu, Ming, Wenguo Weng, and Hongyong Yuan. "Effects of multiple air gaps on the thermal performance of firefighter protective clothing under
low-level heat exposure." Textile Research Journal 84.9 (2014): 968-978.
 Cui, Zhi-ying, Chunjie Ma, and Na Lv. "Effects of heat treatment on the mechanical and thermal performance of fabric used in firefighter
protective clothing." Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe (2015): 74-78

9. Thermal Protective Performance of Multilayer Fabric
Fabric Details Fabric code Weave
Conex/Twaron/Beltron
(82/15/3)
OL1 2/1 Twill
Nomex OL2 2/1 Twill
Conex OL3 2/1 Twill
Modacrylic/Cotton IL1 Plain
Wool/Viscose IL2 2/1 Twill
Nomex-Nonwoven
1.7den
NW1 -
Nomex-Nonwoven 2.2
den
NW2 -
OL-Outer Layer
IN-Inner Layer
NW-Thermal Liner
 All the coded fabric layers combined together and form Commercial
heat protective fabrics including woven as a outer layer, needle
punched thermal liner and inner layer clothes were selected from
available set of fabrics.
Materials-
Ref.-Kothari, V. K., and S. Chakraborty. "Protective performance of thermal protective clothing assemblies exposed to different radiant heat fluxes." Fibers and Polymers 17.5 (2016): 809-814.

10. Estimation of Protection Time
Ref.-Kothari, V. K., and S. Chakraborty. "Protective performance of thermal protective clothing assemblies exposed to different radiant heat fluxes." Fibers and Polymers 17.5 (2016): 809-814.
Shutter
Fabric
Sensor
Thermometer Specimen Holder
Quartz
Tubes
Testing Instrument (ASTM F 1939-08 )-
Stoll’s curve for a combination of fabrics tested at an arbitrary heat intensity
This Stoll's curve estimated the second degree burn injury time. It is
noted on continuous heating comparing cumulative heat curve with
Stoll’s curve.

11. Results
Protection time (seconds) of different fabric combinations
at different heat fluxes
Details of fabrics
 They have concluded that fabric has lower air permeability
showed higher thermal protection time.
Ref.-Kothari, V. K., and S. Chakraborty. "Protective performance of thermal protective clothing assemblies exposed to different radiant heat fluxes." Fibers and Polymers 17.5 (2016): 809-814.

12. Firefighters’Protective Fabrics by Incorporating Phase Change Materials
PCM configuration within FFPF specimen assembly
 Clothing fabric containing phase change materials has the property of offering a
suitable response to changes in external temperature or to external and
environmental stimuli.
 Therefore it has been applied to firefighter protective clothing to improve thermal
comfort or the heat protection effect, because of its high thermal storage
capacities
 Many Researcher studied the use of PCM to improve the thermal protection
performance of firefighters’ protective clothing and observed a heat buffering
effect when the clothing was exposed to a thermal radiation source.
Ref.-Zhu, F. L., et al. "Enhancing the thermal protective performance of firefighters' protective fabrics by incorporating phase change materials." Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe (2015).

13. Fighter’s Protective Clothing by Aerogel Incorporated
Ref.- Shaid, Abu, M. Fergusson, and Lijing Wang. "Thermophysiological comfort analysis of aerogel nanoparticle incorporated fabric for fire fighter's protective clothing." Chemical and materials engineering 2.2 (2014): 37-43.
Ref.- Aerogel nonwoven as reinforcement and batting material for firefighter’s protective clothing: a comparative study Abu Shaid1 ( Lijing Wang ,Rajiv Padhye,M. A. Rahman Bhuyian)
 Aerogel is an extremely lightweight nonporous material with
excellent insulation properties
 The Aerogel coated fabric has an excellent air resistance.
 The Aerogel coated fabric provides better thermal insulation
properties
 Aerogel nonwoven can provide eight times more thermal
resistance than commercial reinforcement material and existing
batting of thermal liner.
 Aerogel layer is used as a thermal liner, it will offer five times
more resistance to heat than existing thermal liner and three
times more thermal resistance than the combined performance
of existing thermal liner and moisture barrier

14. Testing standard, Parameter, Requirements
Ref.- Roguski, Jacek, et al. "Comparison of Requirements and Directions of Development of Methods for Testing Protective Clothing for Firefighting." Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe 5 (119) (2016): 132-136.

15. Softening/Melting Temperature and Flammability Evaluation
Image courtesy- www.labtesting-equipment.com
Forty five degree flammability tester Vertically flammability tester
Image courtesy-https://www.taurus-instruments.de/
LOI tester
Image Courtesy-https://www.alibaba.com/
 Burning Time
 Burning Rate
 Ease of ignition
 Limiting Oxygen index (BY
LOI instrument)
 Flammability behaviour
of fabric
 Char length

16. Thermal Protective performance evaluation
Radiant Heat Exposures (ASTM F1939) Flame Exposures Test ASTM D 4108
 Thermal Protective Performance
(TPP) = Second degree burn
time(s) × Radiant heat
flux(kw/m2 )

17. Effect of Heat Flux on performance of thermal
protective clothing

18. Effect of Heat Flux on Protection Time
 As the applied heat flux increases from
moderately high to higher, protection time
decreases rapidly and nonlinearly. Further
increase in applied heat flux, protection time
decreases but not so fast
 As increased heat fluxes, degradation of outer
layers and thermal liners, was observed to be
very rapid. Thermal degradation and charring at
high heat fluxes consumes thermal energy and
produce charred insulation at outer layers which
may cause reduced heat transfer.
Ref.-Kothari, V. K., and S. Chakraborty. "Protective performance of thermal protective clothing assemblies exposed to different radiant heat fluxes." Fibers and Polymers 17.5 (2016): 809-814.

19. Effect of Heat Flux on Tensile Properties
Variation in: a) tensile strength and b) elongation at break as a function of heat flux and time.
 Higher heat flux led to the breaking
of polymer chains at a molecular
level and resulted in a drop in fabric
tensile strength.
Ref.- Cui, Zhi-ying, Chunjie Ma, and Na Lv. "Effects of heat treatment on the mechanical and thermal performance of fabric used in firefighter protective clothing." Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe (2015).
Material-
Outer shell fabric made by X-Fiber®
(93%/5%/2% Meta aramid/Kevlar/ P-
140 Antistatic Fiber)

20. Effect of Heat Flux on Tear strength
Material-
Outer shell fabric made by X-Fiber®
(93%/5%/2% Meta aramid/Kevlar/ P-
140 Antistatic Fiber)
Ref.- Cui, Zhi-ying, Chunjie Ma, and Na Lv. "Effects of heat treatment on the mechanical and thermal performance of fabric used in firefighter protective clothing." Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe (2015).
 It was observed that the tear strength
retention of the outer shell fabric decreased
sharply with the exposure time. The reason
for which was that the surface temperature
(300 °C) was higher than the Tg of meta-
aramid fiber (270 °C)

21. Effect of heat exposure on Thermal Protective Performance
Material-
Outer shell fabric made by X-Fiber®
(93%/5%/2% Meta aramid/Kevlar/ P-
140 Antistatic Fiber)
 After 6.5 kW/m2 thermal treatment causes increase in
fabric thickness due to thermal shrinkage. It was
thought that the fabric treated contained more air
spaces, which increased the TPP rating
 After exposure to 9.7 kW/m2 heat flux, formation of
char takes place on fabric surface so TPP rating
increases.

22. Thank you