Dust Hazard Assessment and Control – Unanswered Questions

The Fire Protection Research Foundation's recent Dust Explosion Hazard and Control Symposium held October 20-21, 2010 in Kansas City, MO was a large success. In attendance were 167 individuals representing a wide variety of industry professionals. Highlights included a keynote presentation from Imperial Sugar and a multi-industry panel presenting their latest best practices.

 

The multi-industry panel answered 4 main questions regarding challenges in complying with OSHA, NFPA, and CEN requirements, resolving inconsistency in these requirements, securing management/owner buy-in for financial and staffing resources to support a combustible dust program, and how they develop priorities and a methodical approach to dealing with various combustible dust issues.

The attendees were also given a chance to write down questions that they would have liked the multi-industry panel to address. Although there was not enough time for the panel to discuss these questions at the symposium, some of them are provided below:

• Are there sometimes conditions considered “too turbulent” to allow a dust explosion to propagate?
• Is the wetting down of fugitive dust accumulations considered to be an effective strategy for solidifying the dust back into “chunk” form?
• Should electronic devices such as cell phones and key FOB’s be allowed in areas that might have dust?
• Would there ever be a situation where explosion deflagration venting and explosion suppression would be appropriate for the same piece of equipment (other than isolation)?
• What are some design strategies for an existing plant that switches processes which double the Kst of its dust from 100 to 200?
• What are the 4 criteria necessary to issue a general duty OSHA violation?

Please leave a comment to help answer or provide insight on any of the above questions. You can follow the conversation by subscribing to the blog’s feed.