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Comparative Studies on the Explosion Severity of Different Wood Dusts from Fiberboard Production Lu Guo, a Qiuping Xiao, b Nanfeng Zhu, a Yao Wang, b Xiulan Chen, c and Changyan Xu a, *
Wood dust samples with different particle sizes were used to investigate the explosion characteristics of wood dust. The dust samples came from Populus alba L., Pinus massoniana Lamb., and Cinnamonum camphora (L.) Pres., species that are commonly utilized in medium density fiberboard production in China. The thermogravimetric characteristics, element composition, and morphology of dust samples were analyzed to help explain the explosion phenomena in a 20 L sphere. The analysis showed that both the maximum explosion pressure and explosion index of wood dust presented a decreasing trend with increasing particle size, and the maximum explosion pressure values were in the range of 7 to 9 bar, regardless of species. For both explosion pressure and explosion index values, the wood dust with similar particle sizes were different, which are ranked as Populus alba > Cinnamonum camphora > Pinus massoniana . In addition, for the explosion pressure of wood dust with similar particle size, the dust concentration had threshold values. Additionally, the particle size and dust concentration had a synergistic effect on the explosion pressure and explosion index. Wood dust with a smaller particle size is more likely to explode at the threshold of concentration.
Keywords: Wood dust; Particle size; Dust concentration; Maximum explosion pressure; Explosion index Contact information: a: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, 159 Longpan Road, Nanjing 210037, P.R. China; b: Shanghai Research Institute of Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., 345 Yunling West Road, P.R. China; c: Dare Wood-Based Panels Group Co., Ltd., 2021 Haixiu Road, P.R. China; *Corresponding author: changyanxu1999@163.com INTRODUCTION With the development of modern industry and the extensive application of powder technology, a growing number of industries are becoming involved in the production, processing, transportation, and storage of flammable powder. In recent years, the types and amounts of flammable powder have increased greatly, resulting in a significant increase in equipment abrasion, dust explosion casualties, and serious environmental pollution (Abbasi and Abbasi 2007; Yan and Yu 2012; Yuan et al. 2015). As a typical type of flammable powder, biomass dust, especially wood dust, also possesses serious explosive potential (Huescar Medina et al. 2013; Calvo Olivares and Rivera 2014). Dust burning is likely to occur in almost all sections involving wood dust processing, transportation, and storage, and such incidents do harm to the human body, equipment, and the environment (Hedlund et al. 2014; Krentowski 2015). In the fabrication board production, wood grinding, sawing, milling, planing, carving, and other processing processes will produce shavings, sawdust, sanded wood powder, etc . When the wood dust is suspended in the air or scattered on the hot surface of the equipment, the dust is accumulated. If there is a suitable ignition source in the surrounding environment, the
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Guo et al . (2019 ). “Explosion of wood d usts,” B io R esources 14(2), 3182-3199.
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