EP0578808B1 - Individual protective and breathing equipment for contaminated environments - Google Patents

Abstract

Equipment including a helmet (10) with a hard shell and an inner lining, a balaclava-type skin-contacting hood (26) separating the head from the environment, and an oronasal breathing mask (20) connected by a conduit (22) to an external breathable gas supply and having a member (16) for attaching it to the helmet. The hood comprises a web (28) with at least one opening to be placed in front of the wearer's eyes, and a removable transparent visor (30) having a member for attaching it to the hood and/or helmet in a position in which its edges sealingly engage the web around the opening.

Description

The subject of the invention is personal protective equipment in an environment likely to present contamination of nuclear, biological or chemical origin, so-called NBC protective equipment.

It relates more particularly to individual respiratory and protective equipment comprising a helmet having a rigid shell and internal padding, a hood intended to separate the head from the atmosphere and advantageously provided with means of supplying ventilation air, intended to be donned directly on the skin, and an oro-nasal respiratory mask provided with a conduit for connection to an external source of breathable gas and means of attachment to the helmet.

There are already various individual devices of the type defined above. In particular, such equipment has been produced for the crew members of aircraft capable of operating at high altitude, which requires the wearing of a respiratory mask which can be supplied by an external source of mixture enriched with oxygen or even pure oxygen.

For reasons of comfort and reduction of fatigue, personnel should only be equipped with an NBC protective hood for missions where it may become necessary. The use of an inseparable hood assembly provided with a transparent visor-respiratory mask has been proposed (US-A-4 404 969, forming the preamble of claim 1, and FR-A-2 350 851). It has the serious drawback of requiring two separate complete items of equipment to be provided for each member of the crew.

One of the causes of discomfort of existing hoods worn directly on the skin results from the fact that they are completely closed and from the fact that the wearing of the hood simultaneously imposes that of the mask. The present invention aims in particular to provide respiratory equipment of the above type spreading or at least reducing the discomfort.

To this end, the invention notably proposes an equipment in which the hood comprises an envelope in which is formed at least one opening intended to be placed in front of the wearer's eyes and a removable transparent telescope provided with means of attachment to the hood and / or on the helmet in a position where its edges apply tightly to the envelope around the opening.

When the telescope is placed outside the envelope, which will be the most frequent case, it can be provided with attachment means on the rigid shell of the helmet which can be of constitution similar to that of the means of attachment of the respiratory mask to the helmet, except that it is not necessary that they have such a large amplitude of adjustment. These means can be pierced with a ventilation air supply duct and / or air extraction channel, so as to sweep the internal surface of the telescope with demisting air.

In another particular embodiment, which makes sealing more easily possible, the bezel is provided to be placed inside the envelope. In return, the introduction of the visor through the opening and its correct positioning are more difficult than in the previous case.

The use of a detachable telescope already significantly improves the comfort of the wearer of the hood. It is however particularly advantageous to also provide, in the envelope, an opening intended to allow the respiratory mask to be introduced from the outside and to apply it in a sealed manner against the face, without losing the sealing of the hood. This result can be achieved without major difficulty using a hood of elastic material, such as neoprene, provided, around the opening for receiving the mask, sealing means intended to be applied to the rigid shell which generally covers the front part of the covers the face of the mask or constitutes it.

The junction between envelope and mask can in particular be made watertight by providing the envelope of the hood, along the opening for receiving the mask, by means such as a bead, a lip seal, or an inflatable seal. seal intended to fit into a circumferential groove provided on the mask shell.

Thanks to this arrangement, the mask can be left simply suspended from one of its straps in the absence of risk of contamination (and in the event of flights at low altitude when the equipment is intended for aircraft). In practice, the safety of the wearer is not however degraded, because it is currently accepted that the personnel can be informed of a risk of contamination early enough so that they have time to ensure their safety. protection by fitting the telescope and possibly the mask, in the case where it uses equipment according to the present invention.

• la figure 1 montre schématiquement, en vue éclatée, les différents composants d'un équipement suivant un mode particulier de réalisation de l'invention.
• la figure 2 est une vue en perspective d'une moitié de l'équipement de la figure 1, le casque n'étant pas représenté.
• la figure 3 est une vue en coupe suivant un plan médian, montrant simplement les raccordements entre d'une part l'enveloppe de la cagoule et la lunette, d'autre part l'enveloppe de la cagoule et le masque respiratoire.
• la figure 4, similaire à la figure 3, montre uniquement les composants de la cagoule.
• la figure 5, similaire à la figure 4, montre des moyens d'accrochage utilisables pour fixer le masque et la lunette au casque.
• la figure 6 est un schéma de principe montrant une lunette équipée de canalisation de désembuage.

The invention will be better understood on reading the following description of particular embodiments, given by way of nonlimiting example. The description refers to the accompanying drawings, in which:

• Figure 1 shows schematically, in exploded view, the various components of equipment according to a particular embodiment of the invention.
• Figure 2 is a perspective view of half of the equipment of Figure 1, the helmet not being shown.
• Figure 3 is a sectional view along a median plane, simply showing the connections between on the one hand the hood of the hood and the goggle, on the other hand the envelope of the hood and the breathing mask.
• Figure 4, similar to Figure 3, shows only the components of the hood.
• FIG. 5, similar to FIG. 4, shows attachment means which can be used to fix the mask and the glasses with the helmet.
• Figure 6 is a block diagram showing a telescope equipped with demisting pipe.

The respiratory equipment shown schematically in Figures 1 to 6 comprises, in a conventional manner, a helmet 10 consisting of a shell and an inner padding. The shell of the helmet 10 carries receptacles 14 intended to receive the fasteners 16 for fixing a respiratory mask 18. This mask has, in a conventional manner, a rigid shell 20, carrying a conduit 22 for connection with a supply line for breathable gas and a face cover 24 having a sealing lip. Finally, the equipment includes a hood 26, used or not depending on the type of mission.

The fasteners can in particular have the constitution described in the document FR-A-88 04 616. The supply line can for example be connected, when using the equipment, to a demand regulator, such as that described in document EP-A-0 153 247.

The shell of the helmet 10 is made of rigid molded material and can have any of the constitutions known at present. It can be provided with one or more visors 12, movable between a retracted position where they are shown in FIG. 1 in a low position.

The hood 26 is intended to be worn directly on the head, under the helmet 10. The hood according to the invention comprises on the one hand an envelope 28 made of a flexible and waterproof material, on the other hand a bezel 30, intended to be removably fix on the envelope and seal an opening in the envelope in front of the wearer's eyes.

Depending on the embodiment which will be chosen, the hood may be entirely of a material, such as a vinyl derivative, which is flexible but not very extensible, entirely of a material having a certain elasticity, such as neoprene, or composite, that is to say in several different materials depending on the location. Several sizes of hood can be provided to adapt to the morphology of different wearers. The envelope may have an internal collar folded upwards intended to constitute a neck seal. However, since the hood will often be worn at the same time as a protective garment, it will suffice to provide it with a plastron 32 (FIG. 1).

In all the embodiments illustrated by way of example, the hood of the hood also has an opening making it possible to introduce, from the outside, the respiratory mask 18 and to apply the face cover 24 against the face, around the nose and the mouth, the opening having a dimension such that its edge is then applied sealingly against the shell 20 of the mask. Most of the shell 20 and the fastening means 16 remain outside the hood: the fasteners 16, formed by bayonets in the illustrated case, can consequently be engaged without difficulty in the receptacles 14 provided on the helmet shell 10.

In order to fulfill the double condition that the face cover 24 can be inserted into the envelope and that there is a tight contact after introduction, the envelope must, at least in the part surrounding the opening, be made of elastic material.

In general, and whatever the embodiment adopted, the part of the envelope which is outside the helmet must be made of a material impermeable to contamination. This condition is however not necessary for the part of the envelope which is covered by the helmet. This last part can therefore be made of a material whose contact with the skin is better supported than elastomers or synthetic materials, for example textile material.

We will now describe, by way of examples, various particular embodiments of the invention.

In the embodiment shown in Figures 1 and 2, the bezel 30 is intended to be placed outside the envelope 28. It is constituted by a flexible sheet of transparent and impermeable material, such as a polymethacrylate, bearing on its inner face a seal 34 and which is extended by two fasteners 36 which may be constituted by racks. The envelope 28 has on its side a thickened border 38 delimiting the opening covered by the telescope and intended to constitute the sealing zone. It is often preferable to place, under the border 38, a reinforcement 40 locally stiffening the envelope so as to improve the seal and which can, moreover, have a variable thickness to compensate for the irregularities of the face. The racks can be provided to engage in receptacles (not shown) formed on the outer shell of the helmet. They can be replaced by lugs 36a intended to hang on anchors molded in the envelope, in the space which remains free along the head between the padding of the helmet and the periphery of the telescope 30. Finally, the two attachment methods can be combined, the attachment to the envelope ensuring correct positioning and being supplemented by the attachment to the helmet shell which makes it possible to withstand the forces due to the overpressure of the hood.

As shown in FIG. 2, the opening for receiving the mask can be delimited by a sealing bead 42 which snaps into a circumferential groove provided for this purpose on the shell. This snap-in prevents a loss of tightness by pushing back the edge of the opening in the event of pressurization of the hood.

The variant embodiment shown in FIG. 3 (where the elements corresponding to those of FIGS. 1 and 2 are designated by the same reference number) comprises an envelope having a fold 44 surrounding the edge of the opening for receiving the mask. The part of the envelope which comprises the fold 44 has a thickness e1 smaller than the thickness e2 of the rest of the envelope, so as to further increase the additional flexibility given by the fold and to improve the adaptation of the shell envelope 20. Several successive folds can be provided instead of just one. The support sealing of the face cover can be produced, as in the case of FIGS. 1 and 2, by a thin internal terminal fold 46 of the face covering.

Figure 4, where the elements already shown are designated by the same reference number, shows a hood in which the bezel 30 is provided with a border 48, for example of elastomer, internally carrying a seal 50 which can in particular be a lip seal or even an inflatable seal, which can be supplied by means which will be described later. This border can be extended by lugs 36a intended to be hooked, for example by snap-fastening, on bulges provided on the envelope of the hood.

The envelope shown comprises, like that of FIG. 2, a neck seal 52.

FIG. 5 shows the hood and the mask of an equipment in which the telescope 30 and the mask 18 are both fixed to the helmet by means of racks allowing pressure adjustment on the face and adaptation to the morphology of the wearer. The use of such racks has the advantage that the wearer can initially put the racks in a position of simple hooking and push them in completely to guarantee sealing only in the event of danger, this operation being able to be carried out with one hand. . Other fixing methods are however possible. The bezel can for example be provided to hang all around the opening, while remaining provided with racks or lugs.

The use of racks 36 for attachment to the helmet shell makes it possible to generate a circulation of sweeping and demisting air and / or supplying an inflatable seal. It is indeed possible to provide an air supply channel 54 in one or the other of the racks. The air can be exhausted from inside the hood. There can also be air return by a channel provided in one of the racks. The supply can be carried out either from the mask supply regulator, by a flexible tube of small diameter, or from the supply of the anti-g valve, when the pilot's protective equipment comprises a such valve.

The invention is susceptible of many other alternative embodiments. In particular one or more of the seals must be of the inflatable and feedable type as soon as the regulator is put into service at the request for supplying the mask. The hooking devices may be different from those which have been shown by way of example. It is finally possible to provide, at least in the part of the envelope which covers the scalp, internal grooves allowing air circulation to evacuate perspiration.

Claims (8)

1. Individual protective and breathing equipment comprising a helmet (10) having a rigid shell and inside padding, a balaclava-like hood (26) for separating the head from the environment and advantageously provided with ventilation air feed means, the hood being designed to be worn directly on the skin, and a mouth-and-nose face-mask (20) for breathing provided with a duct (22) for connection to an external source of breathable gas and with means (16) for fastening to the helmet,
      the hood comprising a web (28) in which at least one opening is provided for placing over the eyes of the wearer, and transparent goggles (30), characterized in that the transparent goggles are removable and provided with fastening means (36,36a) for fastening to the hood and/or to the helmet in a position where its edges bear in airtight manner against the web around the opening.
2. Equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that the goggles (30) are placed outside the web (28) and are provided with fastening means for fastening to the rigid shell of the helmet (10), which means are constituted by rack connectors (36).
3. Equipment according to claim 2, characterized in that the fastening means of the goggles are formed with a feed channel (54d) for inlet and optically exhaust demisting air.
4. Equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that the web (28) has an opening for receiving the breathing mask (18) inserted from the outside, and sealing means for bearing against a rigid shell (20) of the mask.
5. Equipment according to claim 4, characterized in that the web of the hood (28) is provided around the mask-receiving opening with sealing means such as a bead (42), a lip seal, or an inflatable seal.
6. Equipment according to claim 5, characterized in that the sealing means engage in a circumferential groove provided on the shell (20) of the mask.
7. Equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that the web of the hood (26) is made of a material that is impermeable to contamination solely in that portion of the hood which is situated outside the padding of the helmet.
8. Equipment according to claim 7, characterized in that the web (28) is constituted, at least in the portion thereof situated outside the padding of the helmet, of a material that is elastically stretchable, such as neoprene.

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