Impact of photochemical aging on high‐performance fabrics used in firefighters' protective clothing
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract High‐performance fabrics used in the outer shell of firefighters' protective clothing protect the wearer from severe conditions. These fabrics are exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation during service and storage, which may eventually reduce their performance. This study explored the effect of accelerated photochemical aging on three fabrics used in the outer shell of firefighters' protective clothing; they corresponded to aramid copolymer/polybenzoxazole, para‐aramid/meta‐aramid, and para‐aramid/polybenzimidazole fiber blends. The fabric specimens were subjected to irradiances between 0.35 and 1.35 W/m2 at temperatures between 40°C and 80°C for up to 600 hours. They were tested for breaking force and apparent water contact angle. Complementary microscopy, chemical, and physicochemical analysis were also performed. The UV‐aged para‐aramid/polybenzimidazole fabric demonstrated a better breaking force retention compared to the aramid copolymer/polybenzoxazole and para‐aramid/meta‐aramid fabrics. The considerable reduction in strength observed in the two latter fabrics was associated with fiber breakage. Furthermore, the apparent water contact angle significantly decreased following UV exposure, indicating the potential degradation of the fabric surface finish. On the other hand, no significant changes in the crystallinity index were detected whereas potential decreases in the peak intensity of some chemical functional groups were observed after photochemical aging. These results highlight the significance of material selection in enhancing the long‐term performance of fire‐protective fabrics and offer insightful information on the photochemical aging of high‐performance fabrics.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".