- Author
-
Carroll, T. R.
|
Schwope, A. D.
- Title
- Non-Destructive Testing and Field Evaluation of Chemical Protective Clothing. Final Report.
- Coporate
- Little, (Arthur D.) Inc., Cambridge, MA
- Sponsor
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, DC
- Report
-
FA-106,
December 1990,
64 p.
- Contract
- EMW-89-C-3045
- Keywords
-
protective clothing
|
fire tests
|
evaluation
|
contamination
- Identifiers
- chemical protective clothing (CPC); detector tube (DT) technique; Dynamic Thermal Stripping (DTS)
- Abstract
- Chemical protective clothing (CPC) may be contaminated with chemicals during routine and emergency response operations. The chemical contamination may be located on the surface or absorbed in the matrix of the plastic, rubber, or fibrous components of the clothing. This study was undertaken to develop a procedure for assessing the presence of contamination, either before or after decontamination of the CPC. The results from applying the method would aid firefighters in determining the need for and efficacy of decontamination. Furthermore, the results would aid decisions on the reuse of CPC. The procedure that was developed is based on a volatilization technique utilizing length-of-stain (detector) tubes as the method of detection. The procedure is simple to use, applicable to essentially all protective materials and hundreds of chemicals and mixtures. This study was preliminary in nature and focused primarily on CPC. The procedure requires pre-positioning of protective clothing material swatches on the firefighter's CPC or destruction of the CPC. Both approaches are impractical. It is recommended that an enclosure system be developed that integrates the sample swatch scheme and volatilization chamber to facilitate non-destructive and repetitive testing of garments. In addition, the applicability of the method to other firefighter protective equipment (i.e., turnout gear, gloves, hoods, hoses, etc.) should also be investigated.