Thermal shrinkage of fabrics used for out layer of firefighter protective clothing under flash fire

The thermal shrinkage of the firefighter protective clothing can greatly affect its thermal protective performance. In this study, a novel and systematic approach to measure the thermal shrinkage of fabrics used for the firefighter protective clothing is presented. The study was limited to fabrics that are used for the outer layer of fire fighter clothing. A total of six different fabrics were tested. They were exposed to a short duration simulation of a structural fire using a Thermal Protection Performance tester. The exposed fabrics were then scanned with a hand-held laser scanner for their 3D surface appearance. Software named Geomagic Studio was used to deal with the point clouds of the fabric images. Another software package named ArcGis, which was normally used in geological studies, was then used to analyze the heights and slope angles of the tags and crests of the burned fabrics. The results showed that for the fabrics tested the thicker and heavier the fabric, the smaller was the thermal shrinkage. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.