Industrial Fire Prevention

  From our Friends at: Hazardous Engineering Solutions Explosion protection in industrial plants News    Hits: 108 Explosive atmospheres usually occur in process engineering plants such as silos, elevators, mixers, mills and conveyors. In the presence of effective internal or external ignition sources, there is a risk of explosion in the respective plant as well as a risk of propagating of the explosion into connected plant components. Explosion protection is concerned with reducing the effects of an explosion and is the central, most frequently applied explosion protection concept. The explosion protective measures include conventional explosion venting using explosion vents, flameless venting, explosion isolation and explosion suppression. But which protective measure is applied to which plant component? Plant example 1: Filters The risk of explosion is particularly high in filter systems. The very fine dust is distributed in the filter and can trigger an explosion if ...

 From Our Friends at : The Regulatory Review   The Explosive Problem of Killer Dust Katherine McKeen Twitter   Facebook   LinkedIn   Email   Print   Font Size: A   A Despite ongoing fatalities, OSHA has no specific regulations in place for combustible dust hazards. Tweet Share Post Email Print Link Font Size: A   A Between 1980 and 2005, 281 combustible dust explosions  led  to the deaths of 119 industrial workers and injuring of 718 others. And in the years since, similar disasters have  caused  numerous additional fatalities; in 2008, a single sugar dust ignition  killed  14 workers in Georgia. Such tragedies may have been “readily preventable” if workplaces  adopted  certain engineering controls, ventilation systems, and training protocols. Yet the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has  retreated  from setting specific regulations for combustible dust hazards, citing...

Understanding Risk Assessment                   Risk can be defined as the Probability of Occurrence and the Severity of Consequences     Risk Assessment protocol   Step 1: Identify all potential hazards Step 2: Determine potential for loss including who might be harmed and how Step 3: Evaluate the risks and decide on prevention and precautions Step 4: Record your findings and consider sequence of implementation Step 5: Prioritize and implement preventative measures Step 6: Review your assessment periodically and update as necessary  

From our friends at: Fike  Dust Explosion Propagation: Myths and Realities by: Jérôme Taveau Originally published 2013 Demystifying Dust Explosion Propagation for an Overall Explosion Protection Strategy The unfortunate propensity of dust explosions to destroy entire facilities and claim lives has been reported in numerous past incidents. A recent illustration is the massive explosion that occurred on February 7th, 2008 at the Imperial Sugar Company in Port Wentworth (Georgia), where 14 people were killed and 36 people were injured. Powder handling processes are often comprised of interconnected enclosures and equipment. Flame and pressure resulting from a dust explosion can therefore propagate through piping, across galleries, and reach other pieces of equipment or enclosures, leading to extensive damage. While the ability of dust explosions to propagate has been widely recognized, some misconceptions lead to the false sense of security that explosion isolation is not required. In...