Department of CBRN Protection, TNO, Lange Kleiweg, GJ Rijswijk, The Netherlands.
Department of Textile Protection and Comfort Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.
Ann Work Expo Health. 2018 Feb 13;62(2):232-242. doi: 10.1093/annweh/wxx101.
Armed forces typically have personal protective clothing (PPC) in place to offer protection against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) agents. The regular soldier is equipped with permeable CBRN-PPC. However, depending on the operational task, these PPCs pose too much thermal strain to the wearer, which results in a higher risk of uncompensable heat stress. This study investigates the possibilities of adjustable CBRN-PPC, consisting of different layers that can be worn separately or in combination with each other. This novel concept aims to achieve optimization between protection and thermal strain during operations. Two CBRN-PPC (protective) layers were obtained from two separate manufacturers: (i) a next-to-skin (NTS) and (ii) a low-burden battle dress uniform (protective BDU). In addition to these layers, a standard (non-CBRN protective) BDU (sBDU) was also made available. The effect of combining clothing layers on the levels of protection were investigated with a Man-In-Simulant Test. Finally, a mechanistic numerical model was employed to give insight into the thermal burden of the evaluated CBRN-PPC concepts. Combining layers results in substantially higher protection that is more than the sum of the individual layers. Reducing the airflow on the protective layer closest to the skin seems to play an important role in this, since combining the NTS with the sBDU also resulted in substantially higher protection. As expected, the thermal strain posed by the different clothing layer combinations decreases as the level of protection decreases. This study has shown that the concept of adjustable protection and thermal strain through multiple layers of CBRN-PPC works. Adjustable CBRN-PPC allows for optimization of the CBRN-PPC in relation to the threat level, thermal environment, and tasks at hand in an operational setting.
军队通常配备个人防护服装（PPC），以提供针对化学、生物、放射性和核（CBRN）剂的防护。普通士兵配备有透气的 CBRN-PPC。然而，根据作战任务的不同，这些 PPC 会给穿着者带来太大的热应激，从而导致无法弥补的热应激风险增加。本研究探讨了可调式 CBRN-PPC 的可能性，该 PPC 由不同的层组成，可以单独穿着，也可以相互组合。这种新颖的概念旨在实现作战期间保护和热应激之间的优化。从两个不同的制造商获得了两种 CBRN-PPC（防护）层：（i）贴身层（NTS）和（ii）低负担作战服（防护 BDU）。除了这些层之外，还提供了标准（非 CBRN 防护）BDU（sBDU）。通过模拟人测试研究了组合服装层对防护水平的影响。最后，采用了一种机械数值模型，深入了解所评估的 CBRN-PPC 概念的热负荷。组合层会导致防护水平大大提高，超过单个层的总和。减少最接近皮肤的防护层的气流似乎在这方面起着重要作用，因为将 NTS 与 sBDU 组合使用也会导致防护水平大大提高。正如预期的那样，不同服装层组合带来的热应激随着防护水平的降低而降低。本研究表明，通过多层 CBRN-PPC 实现可调式防护和热应激的概念是可行的。可调式 CBRN-PPC 允许根据威胁级别、热环境和作战环境中的任务来优化 CBRN-PPC。
