FP 585: Explosion Dynamics

This course will focus on fundamentals of explosions due to the combustion of flammable gas-air mixtures and combustible dust cloud Some generic questions that will be answered in an explosion dynamics context are: 1. How does a flammable mixture of gas or vapor or a suspension of powder or dust particles or droplets form in the industrial processing of these materials? 2. What are gas or dust cloud limits of ignitability, or in other words, what is the range of temperature, pressure, and concentration in which a flame can ignite and propagate? 3. What is the relationship between the flame propagation rate and the associated explosion pressure, and how is it influenced by the combustibility properties of the gas or dust cloud? 4. How does the “rate-of-pressure-rise” affect the overall explosion hazard and the viability of various explosion protection measures? 5. How does pressure development within the flammable gas or combustible dust cloud relate to the blast wave pressures propagating away from the cloud and away from the equipment in which the explosion originated? The course explains the physical and thermochemical phenomena pertinent to these questions and provides a mathematical framework for characterizing and applying the answers.