Industrial Fire Prevention

Ducking Disaster By Elevating Safety 7th November 2022 Online Editor Bucket elevators are found in many industries, both inside and outside of plants Explosion protection systems play a key role in keeping bucket elevators operating safely Keep your bucket elevators safe against combustible dust explosions, cautions Filip Ďurica Bucket elevators and other vertical conveyors are part of the agriculture and grain industries and many other industries. They can be installed outside, inside or both, thanks to their d...

  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 BS&B and Baghouse.com: http://www.baghouse.com/2013/10/15/introduction-to-combustible-dust-explosions-common-to-baghouses/ Introduction to Combustible Dust Explosions Common to Baghouses Guest Post By Bevin Sequeira BS&B Safety Systems (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd.  Introduction to Dust Explosions A Dust Explosion is the fast combustion of dust particles suspended in the air in an enclosed location. Coal dust explosions are a frequent hazard in underground coal mines, but dust explosions can occur where any powdered combustible material is present in an enclosed atmosphere or, in general, in high enough concentrations of dispersed combustible particles in atmosphere. Dust explosion at West Pharmaceutical Services, North Carolina took the lives of 6 people in 2003. Dust explosions can lead to loss of life, injury, damage property and environmental damage as well as consequential damage such as business...

From Plantservices.com a good article on state of the art in dust collection. Dust collection systems get smaller, greener and safer How to clean up with economic and safety benefits. By J. Stanton McGroarty, CMfgE, CMRP, senior technical editor Government agencies in the United States have played a significant part in the dissemination of dust collection equipment. “In terms of air quality, OSHA wants clean air inside for the employees, and EPA wants clean air outside for the public,” says Patrick Ostrenga, a retired 34-year veteran of OSHA and founder of Occupational Safety and Health Auditing, Compliance Assistance Services (www.oshacas.com) . An important safety issue driving dust collection is the danger of fire and explosion from some kinds of dust. “I’ve studied several dust explosions due to combustible dust ,” says Ostrenga. “Cornstarch was one that blew in a candy plant. Until the demolition of the old Schlitz/Pillsbury elevator in the late 1990s, none of th...

Grain elevator had prior explosion in 2008 which caused much more damage and a worker injury. CEO notes that explosion protection best engineering practices lessened the severity of this recent explosion. This incident is a prime example of how ComDust incidents will continue to occur and only the probability and severity can be reduced through best engineering practices and controls. "Explosion vents on the elevator legs and roofs released the brunt of the impact", said fire chief and All Points vice-president of agronomy Mark Ballmer. **I saw this originally on the Combustible Dust Policy Institute blog, and wanted to re-post it here to point out the importance of safety systems such as Explosion Venting and Explosion Protection-

Another good article from our friends at Farr on OSHA REQUIREMENTS and MANUFACTURERS RESPONSIBILITIES for COMBUSTIBLE DUST , DUST COLLECTORS and dust collection systems. The biggest misconception among manufacturers is that OSHA is just presenting them with a guideline, not with something they have to do. The fact is, OSHA is beefing up enforcement of safety measures on several fronts, and combustible dust has become one of the top priorities since the agency re-issued its National Emphasis Program (NEP) on this topic in March 2008. Under the OSHA NEP, manufacturers are required to follow applicable NFPA standards including the revamped NFPA 68 Standard on Explosion Protection by Deflagration Venting , which provides mandatory requirements for dust collection applications involving explosive dusts. Sometimes other safety standards such as Factory Mutual may be applied instead, but these are no less stringent than NFPA and all are treated as legal code by nearly every town ...

August 28th, 2009 by Dr. Saraf Green is “In”. But just because you have a green technology does not mean you have ZERO risks. Let me give you a couple of examples. Biofuel Industry... Dr. Saraf makes a very valid and important point in his blog post. It has been my experience that emerging technologies often lag in safety as the technology and process dangers develop. Our readers may note that biofuels are both liquid and solid forms. I can speak directly to the pellet Industry, and specifically to the wood pellet process as this growth industry is now experiencing critical mass with 100 pellet plants in N.America and an ever increasing number of incidents of fires and explosions. Fires and explosions in this industry are predominantly due to lack of awareness of the combustibility of the product and byproduct from these processes, as well as lack of properly designed process controls, dust collection, safety systems (such as adequate spark detection & extinguishment and explosion ...