Abstract:

This paper presents a method to measure the thermal radiant flux transfer through aluminised multi-layer protective clothing. The multilayer fabric consisted of a layer of aluminum foil, one of glass fabric, and a layer of cotton fabric. The temperature of the surface of the cotton fabric and the amount of the radiation heat flux transfer through multilayer fabric was measured. The results showed that by increasing the thickness of the glass fabric, the temperature of the cotton fabric surface as well as the amount of heat flux transfer through the multilayer fabric are decreased. There is a logarithmic relationship between the temperature of the cotton fabric surface and thickness of the glass fabric, which means that an increase in glass fabric has a significant effect on the reduction of thermal radiant flux transferring through clothing. However, the reduction of thermal radiant heat flux tends towards a constant value at higher values of glass fabric thickness. The value of radiant heat flux measured was also used to predict the temperature of the skin surface. The results showed that the aluminised multi-layer clothing decreases the temperature of the skin surface significantly during exposure to a low radiant heat source.