What is Thermal Radiation Protective Garment?

In the practical application of protective garment, the thermal radiation is one of the main forms of heat transmission caused injury victims. Even with a burning flame, the energy may also up to 80% of the thermal radiation. In the test of thermal protective clothing against thermal radiation performance, the fabric often exposed to radiant heat source vertically, and within a specified distance, the fabric samples were met thermal radiation by heat source, so that within the specified time, the heat flux through the fabric sample can reflect thermal radiation properties of the sample. Through the size of the fabric sample heat flux, it can be expressed by the temperature of rear fabric sample, higher temperature, the greater heat flux of fabric samples are, the worse of heat radiation properties of the fabric; on the contrary, the greater thermal radiation performance of fabrics are. It can also be measured by the required time when rear fabric caused skin second-degree burn to evaluate the heat radiation properties of the fabrics.

The performance of thermal radiation of fabric is directly related to the fabric weight, thickness, density, and surface condition. In addition to the insulation properties of the fabric, increasing the thickness and the tightness of the fabric, reducing the permeability of the fabric will help to improve the fabric thermal radiation performance. Moreover, thermal radiation protective clothing fabric usually coated with aluminum, high surface reflectivity of the fabric, or finishing the electrical conductivity together with resin, which will have better protection of radiant heat. In the radiant heat protective clothing, the effect of aluminum coated fabric is better than the non-coated aluminum fabric, but the aluminum-coated fabric is not suitable for flame situations such as sealed fire area. While it applies for the radiation protection when the firefighter has a certain distance to the fire area.