Design and performance evaluation of a firefighting protective suit with an incorporated liquid-cooled system

Abstract

A liquid-cooled garment with active cooling function can make up for deficiency of the human thermoregulatory system and passive thermal insulation of the firefighting protective suit. Fabrics treated at different inlet temperatures and pipeline intervals were applied in multilayered liquid-cooled fabric assemblies (LCFAs). The heat absorbed by the skin and the second-degree burn time were evaluated by the stored energy test under low heat radiation. Results indicated that the thermal protective performance of the LCFAs was significantly improved, with the second-degree burn time increasing more than 50% on average. There was a strong negative correlation between the thermal protective performance and cooling effect under different pipeline intervals, while the negative correlation was weak for different inlet temperatures. The results gained from this study may provide valuable insight for design of the inlet temperature and pipeline interval of a liquid-cooled system in the firefighting protective suit.

Keywords:

• liquid-cooled fabric assemblies
• fire environment
• firefighting protective suit
• thermal protective performance
• cooling efficiency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant NO. 52004066]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant NO. 2232023 G-08].