Stored Energy Test Device

A standard method for contact burn injury prediction

It has been found that firefighter protective clothing materials exposed to moderate levels of radiant heat can cause serious burn injuries when compressed against the skin. The amount of energy absorbed and stored in a protective fabric and then transferred to the wearer requires specific exposure conditions and complex analysis - parameters that the stored energy test device (SET device) was developed to isolate, reproduce, and quantify as per ASTM F2731.

A complete system for stored energy thermal research

The SET device includes a black body radiant heat source, specimen holder, heat flux transducer, pneumatically actuated transfer tray with water-cooled sample carriage, compressor, and burn injury analysis program.

The SET generates radiant energy levels matching the spectral density of a structural fire, and tests are electronically actuated for precise control of exposure time. All SET devices come with come with laptop PC and ThermDAC Burn Model software, which processes sensor data and calculates the time to skin burn and the degree of predicted burn injury, along with data logging, real time statistics and data analysis, plus diagnostic and calibration functions.