A prediction method to evaluate thermal performance of protective clothing based on the correlation analysis of the bench scale and flame manikin tests
International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology
ISSN: 0955-6222
Article publication date: 17 March 2020
Issue publication date: 15 July 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Bench scale and flame manikin tests are two typical methods to evaluate thermal protective performance (TPP) of fire protective clothing. However, flame manikin test is limited to be widely used for its complication and high cost. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method to evaluate the thermal performance of protective clothing from the bench scale test results and garment parameters, which predicts the body burn injuries without conducting flame manikin tests.
Design/methodology/approach
Bench scale and flame manikin tests’ data were collected from the previous research literature and then statistical analysis was performed to quantitatively investigate the correlations between the two test methods. Equations were established to predict the TPP values accounting for the effects of entrapped air gap and thermal shrinkage. Fitting analysis was conducted to analyze the relationship between the predicted TPP values and total burn injury. Finally, a method to predict total burn injury from the TPP values was proposed and validated.
Findings
The results showed that when the TPP value was predicted with the effects of air gap and thermal shrinkage considered, there was an approximate linear relationship between the predicted TPP values and total burn injury from the manikin test. Therefore, the prediction model of burn injury was developed based on the correlation analysis and verified with a generally good accuracy.
Originality/value
This paper presented a new prediction method to evaluate the thermal performance of protective clothing, which saved significant time and cost compared to the conventional methods. It can provide useful information for burn injury prediction of protective clothing.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51706123), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant No. 1908085J22) and Science and Technology Major Project of Anhui Province (Grant No. 17030901016). The authors are deeply grateful to these supports.
Citation
Xu, C., Shen, S., Fu, M. and Li, Y. (2020), "A prediction method to evaluate thermal performance of protective clothing based on the correlation analysis of the bench scale and flame manikin tests", International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 499-510. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCST-02-2019-0017
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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