Modelling the comfort and protection qualities of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) protective clothing

Abstract: Soldiers wear CBRN-protective clothing to protect themselves against warfare agents. The disadvantage is that higher protection introduces a higher physiological burden as well. Therefore an optimum for comfort and protection must be found. Models of all relevant processes were created to find this optimum (with and without computational fluid dynamics (CFD)). The air flow profile around a cylinder with clothing was modelled and used for calculating the breakthrough of agent vapour through clothing and for calculating the deposition of agent onto the skin. The flow profile was also used for calculating the temperature and the relative humidity profile around the dressed cylinder. The resulting tool can be used to identify the optimum properties of CBRN-protective clothing, depending on the intended mission.