Combination of textiles and phase change materials for temperature management of a new firefighter protective vest - a numerical study

• Type: Summary of Presentation in an International Conference
• Date: 2023-05

Authors

Soraia F. Neves (Author) FEUP; Margarida Silva (Author) Other; J. Ribeiro (Author) Other; A. Moreira (Author) Other; P. Fernandes (Author) Other; F. Miranda (Author) Other; Gilda Santos (Author) Other; Rita Marques (Author) Other; Miranda, JM (Author) FEUP; Campos, JBLM (Author) FEUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Protective Clothing - ECPC 2023

Pages: 25-26

Associated Projects

ALiCE - ALiCE - Laboratório Associado em Engenharia Química

DIF-Jacket - Desenvolvimento de um casaco de bombeiro inovador

CEFT - Financiamento Plurianual 2020-2023 da Unidade de I&D CEFT - Centro de Estudos de Fenómenos de Transporte

Other information

Abstract (EN): Advanced materials have come into sight to increase the thermal protection given by firefighter protective clothing (FPC), either with embedded wearable electronics to monitor environmental/physiological parameters in real time or with integrated phase change materials (PCMs) to minimize the heat stress felt by the firefighter. The thermal protective efficiency of the latter (FPC with integrated PCMs) has been demonstrated in theoretical studies (1,2). Additionally, Santos et al. (3) recently studied a prototype of a PCM vest to be worn over the conventional FPC. The authors proposed a new vest composed of a structure with a removable matrix of individual PCM pouches. This smart clothing system is promising; however, as a drawback, the non-uniform distribution of the vest properties can trigger the appearance of hot spots between the pouches, which can jeopardize the vest thermal performance. With this in mind, a bi-dimensional numerical simulation model was developed to study the effect of different combinations of materials (e.g., textiles and PCMs) for temperature management and uniformity inside the protective vest.

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 2