Heat transfer model for steam burn injury among fire fighter

Abstract

Burn injury is the most common incident that could happen among firefighters. Firefighter use hose spray to spread water on flames and suppress fire. The personal protective clothing can becomes wet changing the material thermophysical properties increasing risk of burn injury. Burn injury will become severe in wet condition as moisture is absorbed in the personal protective clothing. This study is to develop heat transfer model using finite element method to predict steam burn injury among fire fighters. There are two conditions are studied dry and wet condition. The presence of moisture had transformed the personal protective clothing material properties. It has enhanced heat transfer from the heat flux through multilayers personal protective clothing to the skin. It can be found that the thermal conductivity, heat capacity and density are significantly increased with the presence of moisture. The evaporation process occurred as the temperature of the protective clothing layers is remained plateaued from the outer layer through the skin. Skin temperature is increased with 10°C increment than dry material. The predicted pain threshold of wet material at lower arm is 40s faster than dry material. It is found that wet material first degree burn sooner at t=9.5second than in dry material at t=25second. The highest predicted skin temperature value at lower arm for the dry condition is 46°C only which is less than the wet condition 56°C. It is observed that the presence of moisture had compromised thermal protection of firefighters personal protective clothing. Heat transfer from the heat flux is becomes greater leading to formation steam burn injury among fire fighters.