Investigation of Feasibility of Developing Intelligent Firefighter-Protective Garments Based on the Utilization of a Water-Injection System

ABSTRACT

This research develops a new approach to designing and creating a prototype of an intelligent firefighter thermal-protective garment. During a flash fire exposure, this intelligent garment will absorb a significant amount of the incident heat flux due to evaporation of the injected water, thus limiting the temperature increase and the total heat flux to the firefighter's skin. A comprehensive mathematical model of heat and mass transport in the fabric layer during the flash fire exposure is suggested and numerically implemented using a finite-volume technique. A computational investigation is performed to optimize the performance of this novel garment system in terms of the activation temperature and the necessary amount of injected water.

This work was supported by a grant from the National Textile Center, University Research Consortium, Project F01-NS50.