High Tech Fire-fighters Clothing

Ubaid Ur Rehman Eusuf Zai

X080310@utb.hb.se

Smarta Textilier och Högteknologiska Kläder

Smart Textiles and High-Tech Clothing
 High Tech Fire-fighters Clothing

SUMMARY
Fire fighters work is exposed and can be grouped into the following categories:
 biological & chemical impacts
 mechanical impacts
 thermal impacts (heat, fire, steam)
 radiation
Technological advances are happening in the heat and flame protective clothing industry to
reach the protection of fire fighters. These mentioned topics are crucial to address the
important issue of safety, protection from life-threatening and disabling injuries, illnesses
and specific protection. Continuously changing demands have forced the industry to offer
the various better performing fibres, fabrics and products. Advancements in new textiles
material and manufacturing processes have created the improved protective garments and
enhanced its use and applications in various fields besides the protective clothing.
This paper gives an overview of the major impacts that protective firelighters’ clothing has
to withstand. In this context, indispensable properties of fabrics used to manufacture
protective clothing are worked out and an overview of materials currently used in the
respective fields is presented.

PROBLEM FORMULATION:
The working environment of today’s firefighters involves various risks. Many home-
furnishings and textiles, like clothing, curtains and home textiles contain materials such as
PES, PA6, PA66, etc.). If it comes to a fire, fire fighters have to fight with many toxic gases
and steam which is unlike the fire from wood during the old times. Despite of the fact that
nowadays the firemen are equipped with modern PPE, still they have to face certain life
threatening problems which are being researched. The main problem is that firemen
themselves have to load with a handful of life saving tools and gadget which limits their free
movement or at least provide hindrance by adding unwanted weight on them. Studies show
that the major cause of firemen casualties during fire operation is not the fire itself, it’s their
own body heat and high stress during the rescue operation. Another major problem is lack
of reliable two-way communication equipment that arises due to unsuitable environment,
and more often interference in equipment is the source of interruption.

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ANALYSIS OF DEMANDS FOR PROTECTION:

The woolen and cotton textiles currently in use by firefighters provide a fine balance
between thermal insulation and moisture management, but these are just two of the key
features without which a firefighter suit is incomplete. The rest are less weight, water and
fluid resistance, tear and puncture resistance and external breathing apparatus and two-
way communication apparatus. The traditional woolen fabric can be equipped with the
modern gadgets but the major drawback is the high weight, which outclasses its major
benefit, secondly it has a major problem of compatibility with the skin as it sometimes make
it itchy to wear and adversely affects the performance. There are several smart materials
instead that overcome this problem with the traditional material and also provide added
benefits.

PROPERTIES:
The basic requirement as mentioned earlier is to provide the firemen insulation from the
direct and indirect heat at a fire incident. Among other characteristics required nowadays in
a fire suit is the liquid resistance, supplying enough air during the rescue operation, enabling
firemen to interact with the control center wirelessly, doing all this and more while keeping
the weight of the suit as low as possible, preferably under fifteen kilogram. The later is the
major challenge along with finding reliable way of communication.

SOLUTION:
The modern firefighter suit is typically made up of three layers of protection at least; outer-
shell, a woven aramid fiber for abrasion and fire protection; inner-liner, a non-woven aramid
fiber for insulation from heat; and a thin impermeable layer of moisture barrier between
these two layers which protects firefighters from water and blood-borne diseases. Besides
providing added insulation against heat and water, these advance textile materials form a
suit that is much lighter in weight compare to the traditional materials.
It’s not just enough to have a good fire suit, besides a firefighter’s suit is not complete
without helmet, gloves, and the boots. These necessaries are also made up of/or reinforced
with smart textile materials in one way or other. Even the cylinder of the SCBA (self-
contained breathing apparatus) is contained in non-woven aramid fiber for insulation.

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SPECIFIC SMART & HIGH-TECH MATERIALS:

THERMAL INSULATION:
Nowadays, for protective fibres lot of different kind of fibbers are used. Nomex®, Kevlar®
by DuPont and PBI are only the examples of wide range of protection fibres on the market.
Limiting oxygen index (LOI, minimum concentration of oxygen, expressed as a percentage;
that will support combustion of a polymer) measures the level of resistance of protective
fibres and garments. The higher the LOI the better will be the resistance to combustion.
There are three classes of heat protective fibres that can be defined:
 Inherently flame resistant/flame retardant fibres: LOI 18.4 to 20.6, cotton,
polyester, and viscose to improve the protection, they are finished with flame retardant
chemicals.
 Heat-resistant fibres: LOI 25, Nomex® & Kevlar® by DuPont, Conex® & Twaron® by
Teijin.
 Aramid fibres: Permanently flame retardant, do not melt or drip, compose
temperature 350-550°C, excellent dimensional stable.
Nomex on demand™ is the latest innovation made by DuPont. It is a nonwoven fabric used
for insulation as interlining. It unique characteristic is that it gets thick when the
temperature rises above 250oC trapping more air for insulation while it remain thin at
ordinary conditions and even after getting thicker it doesn’t restricts mobility. The problem
is that it doesn’t go back to original position at normal conditions.

MOISTURE BARRIER SYSTEMS:

There are several companies which are producing moisture barrier systems for protective
clothing such as Gore-Tex® Nomex®, Gore-Tex® AIRLOCK®, Sympa-Tex®.
When it comes to fabric construction, the fabric properties required are dependent on the
type of heat the fire fighter is exposed to work with. When exposed to conductive heat,
fabric density and thickness are of major importance. The highest level of protection can be
achieved by incorporating an insulation air layer (Gore-Tex®AIRLOCK®) into the fabric
construction, as air shows the lowest thermal conductivity of all materials. In this context,
spacer fabrics, like the new technology from Nomex® On Demand™ from DuPont are also a
valuable solution. In order to increase physiological comfort, materials such as Gore
Tex®laminates form W.L. GORE & ASSOCCIATES GmbH based on PTFE

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(polytetrafluorethylene) or SympaTex® from the Sympatex Technologies GmbH company

can be used. Both of them are breathable, water- and windproof and help to evaporate the
moisture.

CURRENT PROJECTS:
WearIT@work:
The European Union project wearIT@work develops intelligent fire-brigade clothing, which
can convey information about special sensors and communication connections about the
personal condition of the task forces as well as over the situation locally to the operations
center. Project owner is a German institute “Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte
Informationstechnik”. Over a helmet display the fire fighter receives current status reports
of the center and the other task forces, in order to be able to consider these with the further
procedure.
Goal of wearIT@work in fire fighting cloths:
The protective fire fighters clothing will be a combination of protection and information.
 A substantial application of the European Union project wearIT@work is the
intelligent protective clothing for task forces.
 Integrated sensors will give information about the environment and the condition of
the fire fighter.
 The Ad-hoc-network support flexible communication within the group and with the
outside leading-manager.
 A display in the helmet can supply important information to the employment and for
navigation.
 Special sensors help in case of emergency with the detection of fire fighters, who are
not able to save themselves any more.
 Prototypes were shown on the CeBIT 2008
LUMITEX:
Soon, protection equipment should shine automatically. In darkness or in close smoke, the
protective suit of a fireman is no active light source, only the helmet is fluorescent and the
clothing is reflecting light. Until now, protective clothing have normal reflectors from
fluorescent material. The EU-project LUMITEX reaches to the end of 2010 and the project
partners are: ITF Denkendorf, DITF Denkendorf with institute for textile chemistry, Lefatex

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Chemie GmbH, Reimotec Maschinen und Anlagenbau GmbH, ITVP Produktservice GmbH,
Mattes & Ammann KG and Color-Textil Veredelung GmbH. The idea of the LUMITEX EU-
project is, that modern protective clothing for fire fighters should shine itself in the night
and should help the firemen to orientate during fire operations. The new idea of LUMITEX
includes electroluminescence properties. Electroluminescence is a physical effect. It can be
explained with the reversal of a solar cell, and if an electrical voltage is applied to such a
device, it can lead to sending of light. Such a device consists of three different layers - a
transparent conductive one, a non-conductive (dielectric) one and of another electrically
conductive layer. After putting all three together you get a kind of parallel plate type
capacitor, which can produce light if voltage is applied.
SENS-ProCLOTH:
Sense-Pro-Cloth is a project which is sponsored by the BMBF Germany (Federal ministry of
education and research) and takes place between 01th July 2008 and 30th Juni 2011. Project
partners are fire brigade Stuttgart, fire brigade Nürnberg, Institut für Textil und Verfahrens-
technik Denkendorf (ITV) der Deutschen Instituten für Textil- und Faserforschung DITF,
Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen (IIS), MSA Auer GmbH, S-Gard Berufs- und
Schutzkleidung Hubert Schmitz GmbH & Co. KG, Josef Kanz GmbH & Co. KG, Medizin- und
Informationstechnik AG, W. Zimmermann GmbH & Co. KG and Bijo-Data Informations
systeme GmbH in Germany. Contents of SensProCloth are the development of “sensory
protective clothing integrated into the system for fire-brigade and disaster control”.
Protective clothing do not only keep dangers away, they also changed the personal
perception and feeling of the environment, and that can be a risk. Without measuring
instruments, damaging influences at the fire operation place cannot be estimated easily.
Sense-Pro-Cloth wants to combine the protective effect of the fire clothing with the
measurement of the environment parameters such as temperature or dangerous materials.
Through an included integrated detection and communication system in the protective
clothing, the loss of perception should become balanced. With the idea of Sense-Pro-Cloth,
temperature, hazardous substances, physiological aspects like pulse, breathing frequency
and perspiration can be measured with sensors. In the future the protective clothing of fire
fighters will learn to think and feel.

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REFERENCES:
1. Holmes, D.A., 2000, Textiles for survival, in Horrocks, A.R.; Anands, S.C. Handbook of
Technical Textiles. Woodhead Publishing.
2. Janet Bealer Rodie, Demand-Activated FR: Smart Fiber Technology, Textileworld.com,
Jan’10.
3. Marek Mejssner, 2008, Smart Textiles, http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/18973, Jan’10.
4. Stephanie Youker, How to Make Fire Retardant Clothes Safe and Comfortable,
worldfiredepartments.com/fire clothing, Feb’10.
5. Hayden Brown, Feb’05, Firefighter Turnout Coat Configurations: Performance Data for
Acquisition Decisions, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
URL: www.bfrl.nist.gov.
6. Nikola Schwaiger, Challenges & properties in the protective garments for fire fighters,
Dec’09.
7. www.city.davis.ca.us/fire/pct, Feb’10
8. www.exploretextiles.ca/textiles/sco_firefighter_e.aspx , Dec’09
9. www.sympatex.com/technologien/membran_und_laminate/aufbau_und_funktion_der_m
embran, Dec’09 [Moisture barrier]
10. www2.dupont.com/Personal_Protection/en_US/assets/downloads/nomex/
NomexDemandRev3.wmv, Jan’10 [Nomex on demand video]