It is important to understand the process of evaporation and steam transfer through firefighter protective clothing in order to be able to prevent steam burns. As humidity sensors are too slow to measure fast changes of humidity inside the clothing layers, temperature changes were used to analyze the evaporation of moisture. Temperature measurements turned out to be useful to predict the evaporation speed within the clothing layers, as temperatures remain constant during the evaporation. The measurements showed that the temperatures within the clothing layers containing a wet layer never rose higher than the temperatures within dry clothing. As soon as all moisture had evaporated, temperature increase followed exactly the curves of the measurements of dry samples.
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2.
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3.
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4.
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5.
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6.
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8.
Li, Y., and Zhu, Q.Y., A Model of Coupled Liquid Moisture and Heat Transfer in Porous Textiles with Consideration of Gravity, Numer. Heat Transfer A43, 501-523 (2003).
9.
Barker, R.L. , Guerth-Schacher, C., Grimes, R.V., and Hamouda, H., Effects of Moisture on the Thermal Protective Performance of Firefighter Protective Clothing in Low-level Radiant Heat Exposures , Textile Res. J. 76(1), 27-31 (2006).
10.
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11.
Stull, J.O., The Effect of Moisture on Firefighter Protective Clothing Thermal Insulation: A Review of Industry Research, in "Performance of Protective Clothing," C. N. Nelson and N. W. Henry (Ed.), ASTM STP, American Society for Testing and Materials, West Conshohocken, PA, USA, pp. 557-576 (2000).
12.
Rossi, R., Experimentelle Untersuchung zur Wechselwirkung von Schutz und Physiologie bei Feuerwehrschutzkleidung, PhD Thesis, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH, Zurich, Switzerland (1999).
13.
Crow, R.M., and Osczevski, R.J., The Interaction of Water with Fabrics, Textile Res. J. 68(4), 280-288 (1998).
14.
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15.
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16.
Jones, F.E., "Evaporation of Water: With Emphasis on Applications and Measurements ," Lewis Cop., Chelsea, Michigan, USA (1992).
