Burning dummy application prospects

Improvements in dummy testing system:

1) Further improve the sensor to be closer to the nature of real skin. The selection of sensors is a very important part. Currently used sensors are mainly copper sheet sensors and skin simulation sensors, but both have shortcomings. The rate of heat absorption differs between the copper sheet sensor and the skin, and the temperature rise of the skin is faster than that of the copper sheet sensor; while the density, heat capacity, and heat dissipation coefficient of the skin simulation sensor are somewhat different from that of the skin. Therefore, improve the sensor to make it closer to the skin's heat absorption capacity, for improving the accuracy of the burning dummy test has important significance.

2) Combination of combustion dummy and sweating dummy to comprehensively and objectively evaluate protective clothing. Under the current test conditions, neither the TPP test device nor the combustion dummy test system can simulate water vapor transfer. Water vapor transfer has a non-negligible impact on protective performance. Firefighters often get wet during firefighting, and the firefighters themselves sweat. If the burning dummy can be improved to simulate the sweating state, that is, to achieve the perfect combination of burning dummy and sweating dummy, it can provide objective test results for the overall testing of protective clothing, whether it is protective performance testing or comfort testing.

3) Intelligent research on burning dummies, more realistic simulation of fire fighting situations. Most of the existing international burning dummies can not move. And the different levels of activity must affect the test results of protective performance, so the evaluation and study of thermal protection performance can not be limited to the static state of the situation. If the dummy is equipped with an intelligent system to make it more active like a real person, it can more realistically simulate the actual fire fighting situation of firefighters and more objectively and comprehensively evaluate the fire suit.

4) Realistic reproduction of various fire conditions, broadening the research field of flame retardant protective clothing. The current combustion dummy system can only simulate the fire environment, but in addition to fire, there may be water, smoke and poison. Improving the combustion dummy test system so that it can simulate both fire and the fire environment of water, poison and smoke can broaden the research field of flame retardant protective clothing.

Broadening of application fields:

1. Combustion dummy testing technology is the internationally recognized optimal technology for objectively evaluating the overall thermal protection performance of clothing. Possible future application areas.

2. Testing and analysis of garments. Using the combustion dummy testing system, we can carry out various firefighting uniforms, military uniforms and other protective equipment flame retardant performance measurement and research on the influencing factors. Shorten the research cycle of new flame retardant materials and equipment, improve the level of research, and promote the development of individual protective equipment.

3. Research on human body. The use of combustion dummy test system to create real flame-clothing-skin environmental conditions, monitoring the combustion process of dummy skin heat flow and temperature changes, for further biophysical research on human skin tissue burn analysis provides an effective data base.

4. safety protection. In addition to firefighting clothing, ordinary clothing also requires a certain level of flame retardant properties. Burning dummy can not only be used in military protective clothing testing, in the civilian side for the promotion of thermal protection fabrics, clothing and other equipment development, protection from fire and thermal radiation and other dangerous environments caused by thermal injuries to the human body, also has important research significance.

 The main components of the combustion dummy system:

The system is mainly composed of a combustion dummy, data acquisition device, flame generation and control device, skin heat transfer model and burn assessment model, as well as the system centralized control and application software platform. The principle is to test the change of the dummy surface temperature by simulating the heat exposure process of the dressed human body in the combustion flame, and to predict the second and third degree burns and the total burn area percentage that may be caused to the skin, the larger the burn area percentage, the worse the flame retardant protection performance of the garment.

Burning dummy. Made of non-metallic materials, the duration of the flame during the garment test is generally 4s, and the dummy surface needs to have good thermal stability under the burning flame conditions of 300°C.

Sensor. Combustion dummy surface sensor response to the combustion flame, should be close to the human skin response to the flame. At present, the sensors used at home and abroad are mainly TPP copper sheet heat flow meter sensor, adiabatic copper sheet sensor and embedded thermocouple sensor three. The deployment of the sensor needs to be considered comprehensively, such as the dummy area, data acquisition, burn assessment calculation and other factors.
    
Data acquisition. The data acquisition device mainly completes the signal acquisition and processing of each sensor on the dummy surface. To ensure the simultaneous and efficient acquisition of multiple sensor signals, multiple data processing units are required.

Flame generation and control device. Flame generation and control device includes the selection of fuel (usually propane material), gas delivery pipeline and burner.

Application software. The application software platform is the nerve center of the whole system, which mainly consists of data acquisition module, detection and control module, matrix operation module, burn prediction analysis processing module and system resource management module.