Full Ensemble and Bench Scale Testing of Fire Fighter Protective Clothing.
Full Ensemble and Bench Scale Testing of Fire Fighter
Protective Clothing.
(2558 K)
Stroup, D. W.; McLane, R. A.; Twilley, W. H.
NISTIR 7467; 75 p. November 2007.
Sponsor:
Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC
Keywords:
protective clothing; fire fighters; turnout coats; fire
models; tests; mannequins; uncertainity; burns
(injuries); fire fighting equipment; heat transfer;
large scale fire tests; test methods
Abstract:
The Thermal Protective Perfonnance (TPP) test was
developed to quantify the performance of
fire fighter protective clothing ensembles under an
intense thermal exposure. This test method
has certainly helped to improve the thermal protection
of fire fighter protective clothing.
However, many fire service bum injuries can be traced to
significantly lower thermal exposures
than are simulated by the TPP test. A bench scale test
method has been developed to evaluate
the perfonnance of fire fighter protective clothing at
low heat fluxes. Tnaddition, a full scale test
apparatus capable of exposing both complete fire fighter
ensembles and samples similar to those
used in the bench scale test to various heat flux levels
is under development. Both of these tests
provide temperature measurements on the surface of the
outer shell, at locations between the
fabric or moisture barrier layers inside the protective
clothing system, and at the thermal liner
surface. When plotted, these temperature measurements
show a detailed picture of how a
protective clothing system performs when exposed to a
given thermal environment. This report
describes comparisons of results obtained using the
bench scale test with data from the full-scale
test apparatus. The data are also compared to results
from a fire fighter protective clothing heat
transfer model.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899