On the determination of the minimum ignition temperature for dust/air mixtures

The research presented in this paper focuses on the prevention and mitigation of dust explosions. The main objective is to demonstrate the applicability of a theoretical/numerical approach to evaluate the most important explosion parameters for characterizing the risk and hazard of dusts. In a previous paper (Di Benedetto and Russo, 2007), we have proposed a model to compute the deflagration index of dusts. The model is based on the assumption that the pyrolysis/devolatilization step is very fast and, thus, gas combustion controls dust explosion (which is true at diameter lower than a critical value). Under the same hypothesis, in the present work, we compute the minimum ignition temperature for polyethylene dust at different dust concentrations in air. We also compare the computed data with experimental results available in the literature, thus validating the model. Copyright © 2010, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l.