Page 32 - Dust Explosions in the Process Industries

Dust Explosions: An Overview 5

in the meantime some valuable summaries were published as parts of other books or as
reports. Examples are the reports by Verein deutscherIngenieure (1957) and Brown and
Jaimes (1962) and the sections on dust explosions in the handbook on room explosions
in general, edited by Freytag (1965). In his book on hazards due to static electricity,Haase
(1972)paid attentionto the dust explosionproblem as well. However, Palmer (1973a)pro-
duced the long-desiredupdated,comprehensiveaccount of work in the Western world up
to about 1970.In Eastern Europe, a book on the prevention of accidental dust explosions,
edited by Nedin (1971), was issued in the USSR two years earlier. Cybulski’s compre-
hensive account of coal dust explosionsappearedin Polish in 1973,that is, simultaneously
with the publication of Palmer’s book, and the English translation came two years later
(Cybulski, 1975).In the Federal Republic of Germany, Bartknecht had conducted exten-
sive research and testing related to dust explosions in coal mines as well as in the chem-
ical process industries.This work was summarized in a book (Bartknecht, 197&),which
was subsequentlytranslated to English. The book by Bodurtha (1980) on industrialexplo-
sion prevention and protection also contains a chapter on dust explosions.
Two years later, two further books were published, one by Field (1982a) and one by
Cross and Farrer (1982), each quite comprehensive but emphasizing different aspects
of the dust explosion problem. In the next year, a book by Nagy and Verakis (1983) was
published, in which they summarized and analyzed some of the extensive experimen-
tal and theoretical work conducted by the US. Bureau of Mines up to 1980 on the initia-
tion, propagation, and venting of dust explosions. Three years later, a book by
Korol’chenko (1986) was issued in the USSR, reviewing work on dust explosionspub-
lished in both the West and Eastern Europe. The next year, Bartknecht’s (1987) second
book was published, describinghis extensive, more recent research and testing, at Ciba-
Geigy AG, related to dust explosion problems. The Institution of Chemical Engineers
in the United Kingdom published a useful series of booklets reviewing the status of var-
ious aspects of the dust explosion problem (Lunn, 1984, 1988; Schofield, 1984; and
Schofield and Abbott, 1988). The comprehensive book by Glor (1988) on electrostatic
hazards in powder handling should also be specificallymentioned at this point. Valuable
information on the same subject is also included in the book by Liittgens and Glor (1989).
The proceedings of the international symposium on dust explosions, in Shenyang,
Peoples Republic of China, published by North East University of Technology (19871,
contains survey paprs and special contributions from researchers from both Asia,
America, and Europe. EuropEx (1990) produced a collection of references to publica-
tions related to accidental explosions in general, including dust explosions.The collec-
tion is updated at intervals and contains references to standards,guidelines, and directives
as well as to books and papers. Finally, attention is drawn to the proceedings of three con-
ferences on dust explosions, in Nurnberg, published by the Verein deutscher Ingenieure
(VDI) in 1978, 1984, and 1989 (listed under the publisher’s name in the References).
Section9.1.2in Chapter 9 reviews books and conferenceproceedings published after 1990.

1.1.2
MA,TERIALSTHAT CAN CAUSE DUST EXPLOSIONS

Dust explosions generally arise from rapid release of heat due to the chemical reaction
Fuel + oxygen +oxides + heat (1-6)