Development of Instrumented Manikin Hands for Characterizing the Thermal Protective Performance of Gloves in Flash Fire Exposures

This paper describes a newly developed instrumented hand manikin fire test system called Pyrohands. This system is designed to measure the thermal protective performance of gloves in controlled flame exposures, including predicted second and third degree burns and the distribution of burns to the hands. This paper also describes a study that demonstrates the utility of the Pyrohands system for comparing the thermal protective performance of gloves made with different materials and constructions. The skin burn protective performance of gloves is of significant interest to firefighters, to soldiers and to others requiring thermal protection against hazardous flame exposures to the hands.