ANALYSE OF EXPLOSION CHARACTERISTICS OF WOOD DUST CLOUDS IN DEPENDENCE OF THE PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION

Abstract

Many processes involving dusts, suspended or accumulated, have the potential to lead to fire, explosion or decomposition in the presence of oxygen and an ignition source. The risk of dust explosions increases as more and more products take the form of dusts or require the use of dusts during manufacture. In spite of extensive research and development to prevent and mitigate dust explosions in the process industries, this phenomenon continues to represent a constant hazard to industries including manufacturing, using and handling of combustible dust material. The purpose of explosion preventing and protection measures is to prevent explosion occurrence, by eliminating or avoiding the conditions leading to explosions. The dust explosion and combustion characteristics are required to be known, in order to suitably choose and draw up the preventive and protection measures. Once known, the protection/prevention measures can be correlated with the safety characteristics. The aim of this paper is to analyze of explosion and combustion characteristics of wood dust clouds in dependence of the particle size distribution. The paper shows the importance of knowing the explosive characteristics of dusts and identifying the factors of influence in obtaining the results.