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Prevention and Mitigation of Dust Explosion and Dust Fire Hazards

What Conditions Can Lead to a Dust Explosion or Fire

A dust fire occurs when the following three conditions, commonly referred to as the Fire Triangle, are satisfied:

 

  • A combustible dust;

  • Sufficient oxygen in air; and

  • A sufficiently energetic ignition source.

 

If the following two more conditions are satisfied, a dust explosion can occur:

 

  • There exists a mechanical force to suspend the dust in air; and

  • The airborne dust is completely or partially confined in a space, such as an equipment or a building.

 

The five conditions mentioned above are commonly referred to as Explosion Pentagon.

 

Although the fire triangle and explosion pentagon appear to be simple and straightforward, each dust fire or explosion is unique, and it is conceivable to say that the dust explosion scenarios are innumerable. In fact, the hazard and risk of a dust fire or explosion in a process or operation are determined by many factors, which include:

 

  • Materials’ fire and explosion hazard properties;

  • Process technology and process conditions;

  • Equipment design and construction;

  • Way of operation; and

  • Equipment and plant layout.

 

The Challenges in Controlling Dust Fires & Explosions

Dust fire and/or explosion are serious threats to personnel safety, properties and business operations to all industries that produce, use or handle combustible powders and solids.

 

One of the challenges is that dust explosions often do not happen a a single explosion, rather an initial explosion (or a flashfire) followed by one or more dust explosions. While the initial explosion or flashfire may not always be a minor, low-damaging events, the secondary dust explosions usually result in more extensive and severe damages and personal injuries.


Dust can accumulated anywhere the airborne dusts can drift to. Therefore, housekeeping becomes critical to avoid secondary dust explosions. 

 

While some plants appear to be pristine before a dust explosion, however, secondary dust explosions still took place due to the abundant amounts of powders and dusts inside the process equipment.

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To further complicate matters, our experts had investigated dust explosions in equipment that had been provided with safety measures that were designed to eliminate the dust hazards.

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For some plants, flammable gases or flammable liquid vapors can generated or present in a powder handling equipment. The flammable gases or vapors are often in concentrations that are too low to support gas/vapor explosions, however, the hybrid mixtures of dusts and low concentrations of gases/vapors pose serious fire and explosion hazards. The biggest challenge is that the small amounts of flammable gases or vapors sensitize the combustible dusts to certain types of ignition sources. For example, the Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) of a hybrid mixture can be significantly lower than the MIE of the dust without the gases or vapors. This means that the static ignition hazards/risks in an process should be reassessed if the process is changed so that a hybrid mixture is generated. 

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Therefore, combustible dust hazard in each facility should be assessed based on its specific conditions. Based on the DHA and/or risk analysis, concrete safety measures (safeguards) and actions can be developed to prevent and to mitigate the effects of potential dust explosions.

 

All relevant factors have to be taken into account in hazard and risk analyses. Often, safety measures are limited by process requirements and physical conditions of the plant. In some cases, creative approaches have to be developed in order to overcome challenges posed by these limitations to control the risk and to comply with regulations.

What Do We to Help

We bring effective solutions to dust explosion hazard control to your facilities through:

 

  • Identify dust fire and explosion hazards;

  • Assess risk of dust fire and explosion by evaluating the ignition likelihood and consequence of dust fire and explosion;

  • Recommend effective and practical hazard and risk control measures;

  • Provide the supporting services assist you in implementing changes and safety measures to prevent dust explosions and fires;

  • Provide performance-based analyses in case the physical conditions prevent effective implementations of some safety measures/solutions;

  • Tackle both dust fire and dust explosion hazards hand-in-hand.

 

Our dust hazard consulting services are enhanced by our extensive hand-on experiences on incident investigations, litigation support/expert witness, compliance review, and testing of combustible dust hazards.

Our Approach

Our help begins with Dust Hazard Analysis (DHA), which is a systematic review to identify and evaluate the potential fire, flash fire, or explosion hazards associated with a process or facility. Our DHA starts with a visit to your facility to observe and review operations and perform a survey of powder/dust handling processes, operations, equipment and plant construction and layout. Other activities of DHA include:

 

  • Reviewing the fire and explosion characteristics of the powders you handle in your facility;

  • Identifying locations where explosible dust cloud atmospheres could be present;

  • Identifying potential ignition sources that could be present under normal and foreseeable abnormal conditions;

  • Evaluating all of the potential dust fire, flash fire, and explosion hazards in the process and facility;

  • Ensuring safety through properly defined fire and explosion prevention and protection measures – “Basis of Safety.


Our experts will assess the actual risks of dust explosions and dust fires. Based on the risk analysis, resources can be allocated effectively for eliminating or minimizing the dust fire and explosion risk.

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Sometimes, some safety measures cannot be implemented due to plants' physical limitations or process conditions. In such a case, our experts offer performance-based analysis of the hazards and risks and work with clients to develop effective and cost-effective solutions for controlling the hazards and risks and complying with OSHA regulations, codes and standards. 

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We will work with you to learn more about relevant details of your operations and develop a plan for the most practical and cost-effective approaches to reduce the risk of dust explosions. We can also assist you to implement the recommendations effectively. Our supporting services cover all stages of the implementation process based on our more than three decades of process safety experience.

Why Work with Us on Dust Explosions?

Princeton Safety Solutions possesses over 35 years' experiences on dust, liquid and gas explosions and fires throughout the process industries globally. Our process industry experiences include hundreds of process safety projects. Our experts possess extensive expertise on dust explosion hazards and control that have been obtained from:

 

  • Extensive experiences in laboratory and full-scale dust explosion testing and research;

  • Both standard tests and specially designed tests to determine dust hazards under specific process conditions;

  • Solutions for controlling both dust fire hazards, self-heating/smoldering hazards and dust explosion hazards;

  • Successful expert consulting services to OSHA Citation cases related to combustible dust hazards;

  • Successful expert consulting services to litigation cases related to combustible dust hazards;

  • Active participations of combustible dust standard making processes as a Principal (Technical Committee) Member of NFPA 484 - Standard on Combustible Metals, and NFPA 30B - Code for the Manufacture and Storage of Aerosol Products.

 

We have been recognized for our effective and cost-effective practical solutions for preventing and mitigating dust explosions, which are based on our scientific and yet practical approach using test data to determine the real hazard and risk of combustible dusts.

 

With our extensive expertise and experience in dust explosion hazard control in various industries, dust fire and explosion incident investigations, litigation consulting, laboratory and full-scale testing, training and code and standard compliance review, we will address the issues you are facing adequately and effectively, and develop effective and practical solutions for prevention and mitigation. We will help you navigate efficiently through complex problems and prioritize recommendations based on sound hazard and risk assessment.

 

To learn more about our expertise in dust explosion prevention & mitigation, please call us at 609 240 7545 or email us at info@PrincetonSafetySolutions.com today.

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