• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.319-325
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• 2015

While the conventional personal protective equipments (PPEs) covers a variety of devices and garments such as respirators, turnout gear, gloves, blankets and gas masks, several electronic devices such as personal alert safety system (PASS) and heads-up displays in the facepiece have become a part of firefighters personal protective equipments through past several years. Furthermore, more advanced electronic sensors including location traking sensor, thermal imaging caerma, toxic gas detectors, and even physiological monitoring sensors are being integrated into ensemble elements for better protection of firefighters from fire sites. Despite any electronic equipment placed on the firefighter must withstand environmental extremes and continue to properly function under any thermal conditions that firefighters routinely face, there are no specific criteria for these electronics to define functionability of these devices under given thermal conditions. Although manufacturers provide the specifications and performance guidelines for their products, their operation guidelines hardly match the real thermal conditions. Present study overviews firefighter's fatalities and thermal conditions that firefighters and their equipments face. Lastly, thermal packaging methods that we have developed and tested are introduced.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.552-557
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• 2015

Ballast gravel in a railroad field is often polluted by grease and heavy metals. In this paper, the performances of a dry cleaning method for polluted ballast gravel in which pollutants on the gravel surface can be physically removed was extensively studied. A polluted ballast cleaning device able to shoot emery blasting media onto the surface using compressed air was prepared. Polluted ballast gravel was put into this device for cleaning, with the treatment time varied from 1 to 10 min. The cleaning efficiency of the total petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals were studied. The total petroleum hydrocarbon removal efficiency was 70-80% for gravels sampled from a locomotive waiting line, while it was 40-60% for gravels sampled from a turnout area. The heavy metal removal efficiency exceeded 90% for copper and lead, while it was 65-80% for nickel and zinc. This system was found to be effective for the remediation of polluted ballast gravels.