A new single-layered skin simulant and its comparison with the copper sensor for burn injury evaluation of thermal protective clothing

Sensors simulate the response of human skin in the thermal environment and therefore play a crucial role in the prediction of the skin burn injury for the evaluation of the thermal protective clothing. In this study, a skin simulant is developed by Macor® material to mimic the surface thermal properties of human skin. The developed skin simulant is then used in the test method for radiant protective performance evaluation. A copper sensor is also used as a comparison in the tests. The results showed that the skin simulant better simulated the surface temperature rises of the human skin whereas the temperature responses of the copper sensor were in a linear behavior. The copper sensor fails to simulate the heat resistance process of the human skin, especially for the cooling phase. For the heat exposure phase, the heat flux at the skin surface is higher than that at the copper sensor surface. For the cooling phase, the skin simulant quickly recovered to a thermal equilibrium state, whereas, the copper sensor continues to release heat until the end of the test. Since the copper sensor underestimated the endothermic process and overestimated the exothermic process, it underestimated the potential skin burn risk.