Fast Response Fabric Test Setup and Dynamic Fabric Model for BURNSIM

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) will develop a Fast Thermal Response Fabric Test Setup for various thermal hazard scenarios involving convection (hot gas impingement by the jet engine exhaust), radiation (fire) and combination of convection and radiation (post-crash fire of aircraft, fire flash or bomb blast). The fabric test setup will (i) measure the thermal response of various clothing and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) fabrics under the aforementioned thermal hazard conditions and (ii) measure and compile the thermophysical and mechanical properties (thermal conductivity, specific heat, density, emissivity, and permeability) to establish a comprehensive library of the properties of full range of PPE clothing and ensemble. ACT will also develop a Computational Fabric Model fully-integrated with the Air Force’s BURN SIMulation (BURNSIM) model. The fabric model will be capable of analyzing the Transient Heat and Mass (gas and moisture) Transfer in a Porous Medium (fabric) using multi-phase volume-averaged formulation. The fully-integrated fabric/BURNSIM software package will include the following advanced features: (i) parametric design tool for optimizing the design of various components of PPE fabric and ensemble, (ii) simulation control tool (time step, convergence and meshing) for accurate and fast calculation, and (iii) user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) for efficient pre/post processing.