Determination of turbulent burning velocities of dust air mixtures with the open tube method

Correlating turbulent burning velocity to turbulence intensity and basic flame parameters-like laminar burning velocity for dust air mixtures is not only a scientific challenge but also of practical importance for the modelling of dust flame propagation in industrial facilities and choice of adequate safety strategy. The open tube method has been implemented to measure laminar and turbulent burning velocities at laboratory scale for turbulence intensities in the range of a few m/s. Special care has been given to the experimental technique so that a direct access to the desired parameters was possible minimising interpretation difficulties. In particular, the flame is propagating freely, the flame velocity is directly accessible by visualisation and the turbulence intensity is measured at the flame front during flame propagation with special aerodynamic probes. In the present paper, those achievements are briefly recalled. In addition, a complete set of experiments for diametrically opposed dusts, starch and aluminium, has been performed and is presented hereafter. The experimental data, measured for potato dust air mixtures seem to be in accordance with the Bray Gülder model in the range of 1.5 m/s<u′<3.5 m/s. For a further confirmation, the measurement range has been extended to lower levels of turbulence of u′<1.5 m/s. This could be achieved by changing the mode of preparation of the dust air mixture. In former tests, the particles have been injected into the tube from a pressurised dust reservoir; for the lower turbulence range, the particles have been inserted into the tube from above by means of a sieve–riddler system, and the turbulence generated from the pressurised gas reservoir as before. For higher levels of turbulence, aluminium air mixtures have been investigated using the particle injection mode with pressurised dust reservoir. Due to high burning rates much higher flame speeds than for potato dusts of up to 23 m/s have been obtained.