Flexible Heat Flux Sensor for Firefighters Garment Integration

Introduction

This work was supported in part by the European Union, in the framework of the Integrated Program ProeTEX (http///www.proetex.org/), which aims at developing integrated sensory clothing system for rescuers in order to improve their safety, their coordination and their efficiency (Bonfiglio et al., 2007; McAdams et al., 2009). If personal protective equipment efficiently insulates body against high stress and harsh environment of an operation, it sometimes results in insufficient perception of normal corporeal sensations and hazard warnings. Used to measure environmental, physical and physiological parameters, sensors embedded in the clothing are designed to reduce risk and improve emergency response capabilities. In hazard conditions, heat flux sensors in particular should be able to alert fire-fighters of a critical thermal exposition before any heat perception on skin (Oliveira, Gehin, Massot, Ramon, Dittmar, & McAdams, 2010; Oliveira, Gehin, Delhomme, Dittmar, & McAdams, 2009). However the cost and the rigidity of such commercialized sensors are a limit to their integration. The work described in this paper concerns the development of a new generation of flexible heat flux sensors based on printable thermoelectric materials. Thanks to the good resulting flexibility, innovative integrations have been envisaged to have access the heat flux across fire-fighters garment.