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

Abstract

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.