An Advanced Flame Test Manikin

Instrumented manikins are used to assess the risks of burn injuries and evaluate the ability of clothing and other protective equipment to mitigate the injury potential during compartment or flash fires or other thermal threats. Recent data indicate that fabric stresses due to body motion are important in determining whether the clothing will break open and expose the skin to significant burn injury, but existing manikins cannot provide the required body motion to induce these stresses. The proposed project will develop an advanced articulating manikin that will provide for body motions and provide other improvements that will aid in accurately and efficiently conducting high heat flux testing of protective ensembles. Phase I will demonstrate the feasibility of the technical approach, and Phase II will result in a complete manikin system.