TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF IMPREGNATED GLOVES FOR HIGH TEMPERATURE APPLICATIONS

Intervention during an unintentional fire puts a tremendous weight on the shoulders of the heroic first responder—and while his/her safety equipment is often overlooked supposedly for practicality, fire-resistant gloves with better insulation and increased dexterity would help dramatically. We are developing gloves using two kinds of glove materials—each impregnated with a ternary material containing a flexible matrix and two fillers, one with very high thermal conductivity and the other surviving high temperatures. Extant first fire responder gloves contain Kevlar and/or leather, while our materials allow gloves ‘survival’ at temperatures significantly higher than that of the Kevlar or organic material thermal decomposition. Essential here also are low water absorption and high scratch resistance of the gloves. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.15544/balttrib.2017.12