Abstract:

Significance Individual thermal protection materials are core equipment for ensuring the safety of firefighters, workers in high-risk industries, and military personnel when working in extremely high-temperature environments. Its performance not only affects the survival safety of personnel under extreme conditions, but also directly influences its combat flexibility and continuous combat capability. With the complexity and diversity of high-temperature working environments, conventional thermal protection materials are difficult to meet the actual needs. Based on the principle of thermal protection, this research systematically reviews the research status, performance evaluation methods and application fields of various thermal protection materials, and conducts in-depth discussions on their future development trends and challenges, aiming to provide theoretical support and direction guidance for the research and application of related materials.

Progress Individual thermal protection materials, according to their protection mechanisms, can be classified into three types, heat insulation type, barrier type and reflective type. In order to address the multiple thermal threats such as heat conduction, heat convection and heat radiation coexisting in real fire scenarios, the materials are usually combined in use to construct a multi-layer protection system. In recent years, significant improvement has been made in enhancing the thermal and moisture comfort performance of protection materials by blending intrinsically flame-retardant fibers with modified flame-retardant fibers for spinning. Some researchers have introduced natural fibers to enhance the permeability of fabrics, thereby achieving a coordinated improvement in protective performance and comfort. In addition, the emergence of new thermal protection materials such as phase change materials, aerogels, shape memory materials and biomimetic structures enables individual thermal protection systems to provide excellent thermal protection performance while also being lightweight and comfortable. Deficiencies were identified in the existing performance evaluation systems for individual thermal protection materials. Clarifying the people-clothing-environment interaction is crucial for optimizing material design and balancing thermal protection with comfort. The comprehensive application status analysis shows that only by building a corresponding protection system in accordance with the specific needs of different fields can better protection performance be demonstrated in high-temperature environments such as emergency fire protection, industrial protection, and military operations.

Conclusion and Prospect In the future, research on individual thermal protection materials will be developed in the direction of multi-mode collaborative systems such as intelligence, multi-functionality and greenness. The focus will be on the heat transfer mechanism of the human body-clothing-environment system under the coupling effect of multiple physical fields, laying a theoretical foundation for precise and efficient thermal protection. By introducing cutting-edge technologies such as nanomaterials, aerogels and flexible electronics, materials have been able to achieve dynamic thermal management and monitor the physiological state of the wearer in real time. In terms of performance evaluation, although a multi-dimensional comprehensive evaluation system has been established, it is still necessary to combine the biological response indicators of the human body in extremely complex environments to more realistically simulate the actual usage conditions. Different application scenarios such as fire protection, industry, military, and aerospace have put forward differentiated demands for materials, which will further drive the evolution of material systems towards customization and modularization to meet the diverse actual protection needs. Overall, the core challenge in this field lies in balancing protective performance with wearing comfort and driving the transformation of technology from passive protection to active intelligent protection. The ultimate goal is not only to efficiently resist extreme thermal hazards, but also to significantly enhance the thermal physiological comfort, mobility and overall work efficiency of the wearer, truly realizing the safety protection concept of people-oriented.

Key words: individual thermal protection, thermal protection material, performance evaluation, application scenario, fire rescue, functional textile material