Theoretical prediction and experimental characterization of radiative properties and thermal conductivities of fibrous aramid fabrics

Nonwoven aramid fabric is widely used as thermal barrier of fireproofing clothing due to its inherent flame retardancy and light weight. In fire or high temperature scenario, radiative heat transfer becomes the predominant heat transfer mode inside firefighters’ clothing. In this work, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was adopted to measure the spectral transmittance and spectral extinction coefficients of four aramid fabrics with different porosity in infrared wavelength range between 2.5 and 25 μm. It was found that the radiative properties of fibrous aramid fabric are strongly dependent on its bulk density or porosity. The spectral extinction coefficient decreases with increasing porosity or decreasing bulk density. The infrared optical properties combined with infrared imaging measurements demonstrate that aramid fabric may be used as infrared semi-transparent textile. A predicted model, combined the effects of conduction-radiation heat transfer, has been developed to calculate the effective thermal conductivity of aramid fiber materials. The model implemented the Rosseland diffusion approximation to evaluate radiative thermal conductivity, and the Parallel-Series structural model to evaluate tortuosity-weighted phonic thermal conductivity. The predicted results were also compared with experimental data obtained from TPS method. This work provides useful information for future studies of heat transfer mathematical modeling of firefighters’ clothing.