Dust explosions occur in work environments where combustible dust is present in work processes. In addition to the presence of combustible dust, five factors must be met for a dust explosion to occur, which will be presented below. The beginning and course of the explosion are influenced by many variables.
The thesis presents the physical properties and explosion parameters of three types of wood powders: beech, spruce and larch. The moisture content of the samples was determined by thermal analysis and specific surface area by the BET method. Wood dust samples were sieved to obtain different size fractions of a certain type of wood dust. Particle sizes and particle size distributions were determined from the original samples and selected size fractions. We determined the minimum ignition energy of the wood dust samples. Measurements were performed for all three original wood dust samples, and for the three size fractions (80-100 μm, 100-125 μm and 125-160 μm) for beech and spruce wood dust.
After the measurements were completed, we obtained areas of minimum ignition energy. The area in which larch dust ignites is between 600 and 1000 mJ. For the original spruce dust, the ignition range is between 10 and 30 mJ, and for beech dust between 30 and 100 mJ. For spruce dust, the range for the size fraction 125-160 μm and 80-100 μm is between 30 and 100 mJ, and for the size fraction 100-125 μm between 100 and 300 mJ. For beech powder, measurements were performed for the same size fractions, but ignition occurred only in the fraction 125-160 μm, and not in the other two. The explosion range for this fraction is between 300 and 600 mJ. I compared the results of the measurements with the values from the literature. I found no literature values for larch powder. For spruce and beech dust, the MVE value from the literature is lower than our measured values.
Based on the results of determining the range of minimum ignition energy of wood powders, I find that the lowest probability of an explosion is larch wood dust. The most dangerous, however, is spruce wood dust, as ignition occurred in all three fractions and the original sample. In addition, spruce dust also has the lowest values of energy required for ignition.
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