Flame propagation mechanisms in dust explosions

To reveal the effects of particle characteristics, including particle thermal characteristics and size distributions, on flame propagation mechanisms during dust explosions clearly, the flame structures of dust clouds formed by different materials and particle size distributions were recorded using an approach combining high-speed photography and a band-pass filter. Two obviously different flame propagation mechanisms were observed in the experiments: kinetics-controlled regime and devolatilization-controlled regime. Kinetics-controlled regime was characterized by a regular shape and spatially continuous combustion zone structure, which was similar to the premixed gas explosions. On the contrary, devolatilization-controlled regime was characterized by a complicated structure that exhibited heterogeneous combustion characteristics, discrete blue luminous spots appeared surrounding the yellow luminous zone. It was also demonstrated experimentally that the flame propagation mechanisms transited from kinetics-controlled to devolatilization-controlled while decreasing the volatility of the materials or increasing the size of the particles. Damköhler number was defined as the ratio of the heating and devolatilization characteristic time to the combustion reaction characteristic time, to reflect the transition of flame propagation mechanisms in dust explosions. It was found that the kinetics-controlled regime and devolatilization-controlled regime can be categorized by whether Damköhler number was less than 1 or larger than 1.     

基于FDS的风速对矿井火灾蔓延规律的影响研究*

为研究不同风速与火源功率共同作用下矿井火灾蔓延规律的变化,以安源煤矿378工作面为研究对象,建立FDS矿井巷道火灾全尺寸模型,设置火源功率分别为3,6 MW,风速分别为0.25,1.25,2.25,3.25 m/s的8种工况。研究结果表明:相同风速下,巷道内温度及相同位置CO浓度值随火源功率增大而升高,巷道内能见度随火源功率增大而降低,且火源功率越大,能见度降到零的火灾区域越大;相同火源功率下,巷道内温度及相同位置CO浓度值随着风速增加而升高,能见度随风速增加而降低;火灾蔓延速率与风速成正比,风速的增大加速下风向火灾的发展,但会减缓上风向火势的蔓延。     

Dust cloud evolution and flame propagation of organic dust deflagration under low wall influence

The present study discusses experiments on organic dust explosions in a setup with low wall influence. The proposed apparatus decouples the dust dispersion and the deflagration event in two separate compartments. The use of a continuous-wave laser to illuminate the centre plane of the observation chamber allows capturing both, the dust cloud and the flame during the same experiment and eliminates typical problems caused by the limited dynamic range of high-speed cameras. A k-means clustering method is used for image segmentation to obtain the spatial extent and the propagation velocities of the unreacted particle cloud and the flame zone. Spatially resolved velocities are calculated by the additional use of an optical flow method. The main goal of the presented setup and image processing method is to provide high quality validation data for the development of numerical models on dust deflagration.