Predicting Thermal Biological Responses of Firefighters Considering Finite Thermal Wave Propagation within Human Tissue

A thermal wave human tissue control equation is developed and used as an extension of Stolwijk´s model of human thermoregulation in the study. The human thermophysiological response will be investigated by mathematical model and human tests with clothing systems. Work conditions for fire fighters can be described according to the environment temperature and the incident radiant heat flux. The modified model is validated by comparison with results of wearing trial in highly dynamic environments and the incident radiant heat flux working condition. The higher heat flux exposure, the more distinctive deviations between the skin surface temperature by the Stolwijk´s model from Pennes´ equation and HTWM equation are. Sweat loss predicted by the extended model and human body wear trial agree well. The results indicate that it is possible to predict human body thermoregulatory responses more precisely than previous work under high temperature or high heat flux.