Thermophysiological Modelling of Firefighter Heat Stress
topic
Thermophysiological models for firefighter heat stress simulate the coupled heat and mass transfer between the human body, clothing system, and environment using segmented human thermoregulation models that calculate core temperature rise, sweat rate, and cardiovascular strain as functions of metabolic rate, clothing thermal and evaporative resistance, and environmental temperature and humidity, predicting heat stroke risk and safe working time limits for specific firefighting scenarios.
Role
Provides the scientific basis for firefighter safe working time assessment and heat stress management by quantifying the physiological consequences of the balance between metabolic heat generation from firefighting activity and heat dissipation capacity limited by clothing thermal resistance, with thermophysiological modelling being the tool that identifies the performance tradeoffs between thermal protection and heat stress burden in clothing design optimisation.