Citation

Camenzind MA, Dale DJ, Rossi RM. Fire Mater. 2007; 31(5): 285-295.

Affiliation

Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Empa, Materials Science and Technology, CH-9014, St. Gallen, Switzerland; Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/fam.938

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The overall performance of a firefighter turnout suit can only be evaluated using both bench-scale tests and an assessment based on an instrumented manikin under defined, close to real-life conditions in a laboratory. Using manikins in rating protective clothing has already a long history which will be reflected in this paper. Efforts all over the world to reproduce a flame engulfment situation in a laboratory are currently being combined in a new draft international standard (ISO/DIS 13506.3). A round robin test showed an acceptable reproducibility for this method based on a manikin test and a gas burner system. An overview of existing measurement systems and the results of this round robin are discussed and possible improvements for the standard flame engulfment test method are proposed.