Tensile strength analysis of aramid fabric of firefighter’s clothing after accelerated aging and abrasion

The Main School of Fire Service, Faculty of Fire Safety Engineering, 52/54 Slowackiego St., 01-629 Warsaw, Poland

^* Corresponding author: r.kamocka@sgsp.edu.pl

Abstract

A firefighter’s clothing as a personal protection used during rescue actions needs to fulfil several requirements in order to provide the optimum safety level. Author made an attempt to evaluate durability of the selected aramid material used as an outer layer of firefighter’s clothing. Verification of material’s durability was performed based on the tensile strength studies of the raw sample of material, and material subjected to accelerated aging in the chamber with xenon lamp and by Martindale’s abrasion cycles. The tensile tests were carried out in accordance with PN-EN ISO 13934-1:2013-07 standard, which specifies procedure to determine the maximum force of textile fabrics using a strip method.The test results show a decrease in the tensile strength of a fabric exposed to UV radiation and after abrasion cycles. In case of material exposure to UV radiation for 100 and 200 hours, reduction of strength by 34 and 48% was observed, respectively. Analysing the results obtained during the tensile testing of the material, which was subjected to abrasion in cycles of 20,000 and 40,000, the strength level decreased by 52 and 80%, respectively.