Testing fireproof professional garments under realistic working conditions

Current systems for testing fireproof garments, including those based on standards, exhibit significant limitations regarding the evaluation of important garment parameters or its behavior under practical working conditions, which largely affect the quality and, more importantly, the safety of the final product. This paper presents a new system that allows fireproof professional garments to be tested in an exhaustive way, addressing all main problems that firemen have to face in real situations. The behavior of such garments with regard to different heat transmission modes is analyzed, as well as the features and limitations of current testing systems. From this analysis, the design and development of the new testing system is described in detail, with emphasis on the electronic instrumentation involved. Practical issues are discussed and preliminary results are presented, which demonstrate the advantages and usefulness of the proposed system.