Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Objective 1: Examine acceptance and barriers to acceptance of PPE products and protective clothing, including hand, foot, and headwear: A. foundation anthropometric and ergonomic research B. user acceptance and barriers to acceptance in domain areas of fire protection, chemical protection and medical environments.

• OK-State: Statewide survey of Oklahoma police officers was conducted to have better insight into the police officers’ preferences of the duty belt and its components, their placements on the belt and other parts of the uniform.
• UMES is collaborating with Washington State University and the University of Maribor in Slovenia to conduct a study to measure the thermo-physiological comfort of PPE. Cotton and cotton/polyester pant/shirt and coveralls purchased from Gemplers were evaluated. Two test subjects wore pant/shirt as well as coverall worn over pant/shirt. Single and double layer requirements were representative of the requirements on pesticide labels in the US. The data has to be analyzed.
• NY-Buffalo in collaboration with, OK, IA, CO, NY and HI, to develop research protocol for the scanning of female firefighter’s hand, feet and bodies. This research will inform future work on the sizing of bunker gear, gloves and boots as well as design work to improve fit and protection of these items.
• CA addressed frequently reported problems in all three domain areas: poor fit (often associated with the limited number of sizes available), thermal comfort issues (too hot or too cold), and poor interface between the different parts of the protective ensemble.
• CO performed subjective comfort assessment with human subjects after participating in a 30-min exercise schedule while wearing a complete set of medical PPE.
• CO evaluated the adverse impacts of 3D body scanning, a tool that is frequently used in anthropometric assessment, on human subjects’ emotional state.

Objective 2: Assess and improve protection and human factor performance of PPE and protective clothing (including hand, foot, and headwear) through research and product development: A. assessment of HF variables in protective clothing. B. design research and development in domain areas of fire protection, chemical protection, and medical environments.

• OSU: In collaboration with CO, HI, IA, MN, NY and NY-Buffalo, OSU team is developing research protocol for 3D scanning of firefighters’ hands in order to collect uniform data across institutions to inform ergonomic design and better sizing of firefighter gloves.
• OSU: Evaluation of posture of police officers seated in a patrol car during typing tasks revealed RULA score of 5.5, indicating medium risk of developing musculoskeletal injury and necessity for intervention.
• OSU team conducted evaluation to compare a current/typical duty belt to a light load duty belt through a set of measurement methods and perception studies.
• Cornell: Study on firegear: Cornell conducted a series of human subject tests with Twenty-one healthy firefighters (16 males; 5 females) recruited from the local fire department (age: 29.9±11.7 yrs, firefighting experience with standard protective equipment: 5.4±6.5yrs, height: 176.7±8.0, weight: 79.1±11.8, BMI: 25.4±3.6) after obtaining Institutional Review Board approval. Each participant had prior experience wearing the standard firefighter’s PPE. To identify the impact of wearing airtanks on firefighters’ upper body mobility, each participant was 3D scanned (error rate: less than 1mm) (Human Solutions GmbH, Kaiserslautern, Germany) while performing the following movements 1) maximal neck extension, and 2) forward trunk flexion, with and without SCBA and helmets. 3D body scans were done at extremes of ranges of motion (ROM) for each condition. In this study, torso length was calculated as the distance between acromion and greater trochanter, considering that SCBA is mounted on the back and could hang low even near the hip. Neck extension ROM, lumbopelvic ROM and standing trunk positions were calculated from the body scans and compared between with and without air tank and helmet conditions.
  • In addition to analysis of 3D body scanning of the twenty one participants, anthropometric measurements of 3647 males were analyzed from SizeUSA (TCsquare Inc.), a national dataset, to understand relationship between ranges of torso lengths and SCBA air cylinder dimensions, and its impact on mobility of firefighters.
• Cornell: Study on pesticide applicators’ protective clothing: Cornell conducted a series of human subject tests and focus group interview with eight greenhouse workers to identify major issues related to wearing pesticide applicators’ protective clothing in greenhouse. Four males (age: 38.8 ±5.4 years; work experience 14.5 ±1.1years, 23.9 BMI) and 4 females (age: 44 ±5.6 years; work experience 24.3±4.0 years, 33 BMI) greenhouse pesticide applicators from upstate New York participated in the study. Information was collected regarding (1) participants’ demography (e.g. gender, age, height, weight, ethnicity, work experience etc.) (2) work dynamics and work environment, and (3) issues and concerns related to the use of the PPG. Participants wore their respective PPG to demonstrate common working positions and highlight size, fit, mobility, donning, doffing issues and stress areas. Photo and video documentation further supplemented the questionnaire and interview data. Future study will include farm workers’ protective clothing which can show different needs depending on work environment (confined space vs. open field). Further study will also investigate gender-specific design issues.
• Cornell: Design of woven garments for active body positions: A set of six prototype woven pants for golfers were developed on half scale body forms in active positions. Optimized fit in the active position and acceptable fit in the standing position was achieved in two iterations. Field tests are underway.
• Cornell: Anthropometric study of firefighter hands, feet and the female body: A nationwide anthropometric study is under development, using newly developed hand-held 3D scanning devices that can capture reasonably high resolution scans of the hand and foot, as well as full body scans. Methodologies, IRB documents, and questionnaires are developed for the study.
• CO assessed physiological responses of human subjects when they wore a complete set of medical PPE, with a variation of cooling fabrics as an inner layer.
• CO developed a weight support harness for exercise promotion and compared biomechanical performance of the prototyped harness with the existing ones.

 Objective 3: Develop research-based performance guidelines and standards for personal protective equipment and protective clothing: A. establish performance guidelines and/or standards for domain areas of fire protective footwear and glove protection for pesticide handlers B. establish sizing and fit guidelines for fire protective equipment.

• OSU team members were active in ASTM standard development, particularly in standards related to police/law enforcement gloves; personal protective equipment; body sizing.
• UMES: WK27291, WK56807, WK53122, WK50483, WK53133, WK51004 Three international standards are currently being balloted. All three standards are based on international collaborative research with UMES as the lead institution. As Project Leader, A. Shaw worked with ISO member countries to revise the drafts to address comments and prepare the drafts for ballots.
• ISO/EN DIS 27065 was balloted in fall 2016. The Draft Information Standard (DIS) was revised and decision made at the ISO meeting in March to proceed to the next stage – Final draft Information Standard (FDIS). The standard is currently being balloted concurrently as an ISO and European standard (EN). The final vote is a yes/no vote with only editorial changes permitted prior to publication.
• ISO/DIS 19918 was also approved in Fall 2016. The comments were discussed at the meeting in March and the draft prepared for next ballot. The FDIS is currently being balloted concurrently as an ISO and EN standard.
• ISO/CD 18889 balloted to establish minimum performance, classification, and labeling requirements for gloves worn by operators handling pesticide products was approved as a Committee Draft (CD). The comments provided by the member countries were discussed at the ISO meeting in March. The draft for DIS ballot was prepared and is being balloted. 
• UMES: A study was conducted in collaboration with Instituto Agronomico (IAC) in Brazil and IOM testing laboratory in UK to support revision of ISO 17491-4, Protective clothing — Test methods for clothing providing protection against chemicals — Part 4. ISO 17491-4 is a test that is used to determine the performance of whole garments on of ISO 27065. Information on tests conducted at IAC and IOM and recommendations for revision of the spray standard were presented at the ISO meeting in Leeds. The working group agreed to consider flat fan nozzle based on studies conducted at IAC and IOM.
• UMES: Studies were conducted to replace the existing commercial formulation used for testing with a surrogate test chemical. The first step was testing with 67 pesticide formulation to determine if a single formulation could be used as representative worst case scenario. Results of the study proved that a single test chemical can be used as reference chemical for penetration. This study also confirmed the work on pesticide selection conducted at UMES in the 1990’s. Based on the statistical analysis a test chemical was identified for development of the test surrogate. Additional tests were conducted with several fabrics. Information was provided to the formulation chemists at BASF Germany to develop the surrogate test chemical. In March 2017 in collaboration with BASF Germany and IAC Brazil was initiated for the development of surrogate. The first round of testing was conducted at the BASF headquarters with all collaborators working together on surrogate development. The results were shared with ISO and international consortium members.
• NY-Buffalo: User data on the needs of firefighter’s PPE from focus group interviews will inform future work on effective designs and develop new frame retardant and cooling products.
• MN conducted a sizing and fit analysis assessing the amount of variability in rib position within each ASTM size for different hypothetical garment sizing schemes. Results show a variability between 50 and 174mm for torso length within a given size, which has significant implications for sensor placement (i.e. for ECG monitoring) in ready-to-wear sensing garments.
• MN quantified the anthropometric data differences between a hand-held body scanner (the Structure Scanner) and a stationary Human Solutions model.

Objective 4: Develop novel functionality in materials for PPE: Research on novel environmentally friendly materials and technologies that can provide biological protective functions.B. Research on novel personal use and field deployable sensing techniques C. Evaluation of the performance of the materials for personal protective applications.

• Cornell: Unidirectional liquid transfer fabric: Developed a novel all hydrophilic fluid diode (AHFD) made of multi-layer hydrophilic porous materials of varying pore sizes, which allows capillary flow only in a preferred direction.
• Cornell: Fluorine-free oil repellent coating: Developed and demonstrated a scalable and versatile method to fabricate oleophobic fabrics based on nanofluid composites. The nanofluid contains specially engineered nanoparticles and a fluoro-free polymer with pendent crosslinkable groups. It can be applied to the fabric via various processes, e.g. dipping or spraying coating. We can achieve Grade B with Liquid 4(AATCC 118).
• Cornell: Optimization of fibrous materials for comfort and protection: Continued theoretical study on optimizing the structure of fibrous system for fast wicking, maximum protection and maximum breathability.
• WA has developed cellulose nanofiber reinforced nylon fibers via compounding and melt spinning techniques. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction, universal material tester, and contact angle tester were used to characterize the morphology, physical and mechanical properties, as well as thermal properties of the nanocomposite fibers.
• WA is developing a sensing textile material for liquid amount sensing and measurement.
• CA has developed novel technologies to prepare rechargeable halamine and photo-active biocidal films, nanofibrous membranes and hydrogel beads for various applications including food containers and packaging materials that can provide surface self-disinfecting functions;
• CA has developed colorimetric fumigant sensors of methyl isothiocyanate (MITC) and chloropicrin for protection of farm workers and local residents.
• CA has conducted a study where the phase structure and dynamic mechanical properties of poly(acrylonitrile-co-methyl acrylate) (P(AN-co-MA)) nanofibers collected in the form of twisted yarn via the two-nozzle conjugated electrospinning method.
• KS has developed a protective textile that is resistant to bacterial attachment on its surface. When the surface properties were characterized, the properties including wettability, surface charge, and roughness were identified as major factors that influenced bacterial adhesion. KS prepared an NIH R21 proposal with the preliminary results, and was submitted in June.
• CO produced the PDA-contained nanofibers via electrospinning and they exhibited colorimetric transition properties due to external stimuli, such as changes in temperature and pH, and presence of bacteria. The PDA nanofiber composites offer in-situ diagnosis to changes in environment via colorimetric indication and may be potentially used in PPE with diagnostic function.