Development of an Instrumented Dynamic Mannequin Test to Rate the Protection Provided by Protective Clothing

A dynamic mannequin testing facility has been constructed to test the thermal protective properties of Navy uniforms and protective clothing. The existing facility consists of a traversing mannequin mechanism that passes through a fire that has been spatially characterized by temperature and heat flux measurements. The fire is provided by 8 propane sand burners in a modified ISO 9705 room. The current project is a continuation of work done by WPI Students over the last 5 years. A copper disk surface heat flux transducer has been designed and calibrated in the WPI Cone Calorimeter. The mannequin has been instrumented with 40 of these transducers for the acquisition of heat flux data during fire exposures. Heat Flux data was collected with the bare mannequin and through protective clothing for a range of exposure times. A finite difference method approach is used to model the skins temperature response at the epidermis-dermis interface. This temperature is used to predict 1st and 2nd degree skin burns using Henrique’s burn damage integral. The percent total body area (%TBA) affected by burns can be calculated by this method. The facility is now capable of providing comparative data on the relative thermal protection provided by different clothing

Products liability.

This project studies the responsibilities of professional engineers when involved in products liability lawsuits. The project holds a large quantity of background information on what product liability is, along with the processes of a trial. Three separate cases are used, in which the information given has been effectively analyzed and reported upon by our project group

Analysis of the failure of steel connections in World Trade Center Tower 5

On September 11, 2001, fires began to spread throughout WTC Tower 5. These fires caused numerous steel shear-tab connections to fail causing collapse in part of the tower. This paper discusses the prediction of steel shear tab connection failure (web tear-out mode in this case) as a result of unwanted fire exposures. Both protected and unprotected connections are analyzed using the finite element analysis program, ALGOR. As a result of this research, recommendations for future fire exposed steel connection research and design methodologies will be presented