INTEGRATED PROTECTIVE FABRIC SYSTEM (IPFS) PHASE III PROGRAM: AEROSOL PROTECTION REPORT

This report addresses the characterization of aerosol performance of the individual materials and the layered structures of the five garment design concepts developed in the Integrated Protective Fabric System (IPFS) program at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center together with two chemical biological (CB) ensemble control configurations. Aerosol protection is an important feature in the development of the next generation CB protective ensemble. Understanding the relationships between material properties, ensemble design, and ensemble aerosol system performance is essential for this development. Material swatch testing was carried out to determine the filtration efficiency of the garment materials. Aerosol system tests were carried out on the configurations to determine aerosol deposition velocities on the skin which were then used in Body Region Hazard Analysis (BRHA) models to determine local and systemic ranking for the configurations. Configurations both better and worse than the controls were identified with significance depending on the data set considered and the BRHA model employed. Generally, two layer designs showed greater aerosol protection when compared to the one layer control. It was observed that aerosol swatch measurements showed no correlation to aerosol system test performance for the materials and configurations investigated in this study.