Abstract: In practical working scenarios with significant thermal risks such as high temperature and strong thermal convection, flame-retardant protective clothing serves as critical equipment for ensuring personnel safety. The thermal shrinkage behavior of clothing during combustion significantly affects the thermal protective performance of flame-retardant protective garments. This study conducted manikin burn tests combined with 3D scanning technology to obtain the burn injury area percentage, burn location distribution, and 3D point cloud data after combustion. Using Geomagic Studio and Qualify software, multiple characteristic parameters reflecting the thermal shrinkage properties of clothing were calculated, including surface area shrinkage rate and volume shrinkage rate. Through principal component analysis, thermal shrinkage parameters that effectively reflect the thermal protective performance of aramid 1414 protective clothing were identified, and principal component scores were calculated for clothing samples tested in manikin burn experiments. The results showed that clothing with a fabric density of 260 g/m² had significantly lower comprehensive scores than protective clothing with 230 g/m² fabric density, demonstrating superior thermal shrinkage resistance. This further confirms the strong correlation between clothing thermal shrinkage and thermal protective performance, and validates that the thermal shrinkage characteristic values determined in this study can effectively reflect the thermal protective performance of aramid 1414 protective clothing.

Key words: protective clothing, manikin combustion experiment, thermal shrinkage characteristic values, thermal protection, principal component analysis method