Research

Research

During the 1990s a steady series of research projects into dust explosion hazards, and the design of equipment for use with explosible dusts were funded by HSE and the British Materials Handling Board. Alan was the HSE project officer for most of these.

They covered topics such as:

explosion protection of pipelines and bucket elevators

the ignition risks associated with hybrid dust/solvent atmospheres

the design of deflector plates for use near to explosion vents

the testing of rotary valves as explosion chokes

the risks associated with simple unenclosed sock filters as used in the woodworking industry

the risks from thermal radiation in the vicinity of explosion vents and

work designed to improve our understanding of how weak plant behaves when subjected to internal overpressures, and how it may be assigned a pressure rating

Alan was also involved in two European collaborative research projects into dust explosion risks, and the control of ignition hazards from mechanical equipment.

As a consequence of this involvement in dust explosion research, Alan acts as a peer reviewer for the Elsevier publication Journal od Loss Prevention in the Process Industries.

An interesting recently EU funded research programme called EDAFFIC looked at fires involving conveyors. This was primarily directed at mining applications, but the results could be applied elsewhere

Research in the UK on these topics is now at a low ebb, but Alan is uniquely well placed to bring the knowledge from these projects and other projects to the assessment of the risks on your site.