Analysis of thermal properties of firefighter's protective clothings

Working environments of firefighters is very dangerous and consist of multiple threats. Fire protection can be achieved by wearing firefighters' clothing that is produced from multilayered textile materials. This layered structure prevents good ventilation, creates high heat stress to the wearers and reduces their working efficiency in fires. In this study, two types of outer shell fabrics, two types of moisture barrier fabrics with membrane and two types of thermal barrier fabrics that are used in the firefighter's clothing production were tested for their thermal comfort properties. It was carried out objective fabric tests to determine the thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, thermal absorptivity, water vapor resistance, air permeability and moisture permeability properties. Also, two firefighter uniform models with PBI (Poly-benzimidazole)/Para-Aramid and Nomex outer shell produced using these fabrics were evaluated using thermal camera to analyze the thermal distribution in different areas under the same environmental and physical conditions.