Accidental electrostatic sparks in industrial plant producing/handling powders/dusts occur whenever a non-earthed electrically conducting object has been charged tribo-electrically to a high voltage and suddenly discharges its energy to earth via an air gap of appropriate length. When assessing the electrostatic spark ignition hazard in an industrial plant, the parameters of prime concern are the capacitances C of electrically conducting plant items that may become charged tribo-electrically, the voltages U to which they may become charged, and the minimum electric spark ignition energies (MIE) of the dust clouds of concern. Whenever , there is a possibility of accidental electrostatic spark ignition.
Current standard apparatuses for determining MIE of dust clouds have a lower spark energy limit of 2–3 mJ. In an investigation by the present authors, discussed in detail elsewhere, a new spark generator capable of producing synchronized capacitive sparks of energies down to the order of 0.01 mJ was developed and used for testing a selection of ignition-sensitive powders for MIE. Several of the MIEs found were 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than the lower energy limit of current standard test apparatus. Other experiments by the present authors, also reported elsewhere, have shown that quite low MIEs can be found for some dusts even with a less optimal synchronization mechanism, which may occur accidentally in practice.
The main object of the present paper is to discuss possible practical concerns arising from the finding that clouds in air of some dusts can have very low MIEs. In such cases, one may have to pay attention to even minor C values, i.e. minor plant items. Alternatively, with larger C values, even quite low voltages may give rise to hazardous spark discharges.
However, some types of fine metal powders of low MIEs will quite readily form electrically conductive layers on the solid surfaces with which they make contact. Hence, electrostatic spark ignition inside process equipment containing such dusts may be less probable than in the case of process equipment containing non-conducting dusts of correspondingly low MIEs.
There may be a need for a new standard test method for determination of MIEs of dust clouds in the <1 mJ range. 相似文献
The full-depth vertical distributions of males, females and juveniles of Lucicutia grandis and Calanoides carinatus are presented from the surface down to depths of 3,900 m in the central Arabian Sea at the end of the NE monsoon and the
February and October inter-monsoonal periods. L. grandis is a steady component and C. carinatus is a temporal resident of the central Arabian Sea oxygen minimum zone. Maximum abundances of C. carinatus and L. grandis juveniles were found at depths around 600 m, whereas the center of the distribution of L. grandis adults was somewhat deeper at 950 m. Both copepods are indicator species which can help to understand the functioning of
the mesopelagic Arabian Sea ecosystem. 相似文献
There is little known data characterizing the biomechanical responses of the human head and neck under direct head loading conditions. However, the evaluation of the appropriateness of current crash test dummy head-neck systems is easily accomplished. Such an effort, using experimental means, generates and provides characterizations of human head-neck response to several direct head loading conditions. Low-level impact loads were applied to the head and face of volunteers and dummies. The resultant forces and moments at the occipital condyle were calculated. For the volunteers, activation of the neck musculature was determined using electromyography (EMG). In addition, cervical vertebral motions of the volunteers have been taken by means of X-ray cineradiography. The Ethics Committee of Tsukuba University approved the protocol of the experiments in advance. External force of about 210 N was applied to the head and face of five volunteers with an average age of 25 for the duration of 100 msec or so, via a strap at one of four locations in various directions: (1) an upward load applied to the chin, (2) a rearward load applied to the chin without facial mask, (3) a rearward load applied to the chin with the facial mask, and (4) a rearward load applied to the forehead. The same impact force as those for the human volunteers was also applied to HY-III, THOR, and BioRID. We found that cervical vertebral motions differ markedly according to the difference in impact loading condition. Some particular characteristics are also found, such as the flexion or extension of the upper cervical vertebrae (C0, C1, and C2) or middle cervical vertebrae (C3-C4), showing that the modes of cervical vertebral motions are markedly different among the different loading conditions. We also found that the biofidelity of dummies to neck response characteristics of the volunteers at the low-level impact loads is in the order of BioRID, THOR, and HY-III. It is relevant in this regard that the BioRID dummy was designed for a low-severity impact environment, whereas THOR and HY-III were optimized for higher-severity impacts. 相似文献
The gas-transport function of red blood cells which have incorporated inositol hexaphosphate is significantly improved by fusion with effector-loaded lipid vesicles. “Right-shifts” of the O2-binding curves of inositol hexaphosphate-loaded red blood cells with half-saturation pressures at 37 °C up to 98 mmHg are observed. The transformation of 56% of the intracellular haemoglobin into the low affinity state corresponds to an optimum increase of the O2-release capacity of 270%. The CO2 transport is also correspondingly enhanced. The treated red blood cells show no inositol hexaphosphate depletion during a reasonable time. 相似文献