Furniture Manufacturer Dust Explosion

[Spalted Walt]

Luckily there were no serious injuries.

[Bill Gill]

Dust explosions can be bad. I remember when I was in Jr. High School there was a man from the state (Oklahoma) dept. of mines who came around and blew up all kinds of things. Sawdust, flour, sugar, and others. He had a glass tunnel with a pan at one end. He filled the pan with whatever and put a small flame in the tunnel. Then he used a bicycle pump to blow the stuff in the pan into the air where it hit the flame and exploded. Almost anything that can be a dust and is at all flammable can be caused to explode. Of course that was one of our favorite shows. He came around every year.

Bill

[John McCoy]

Bill Gill wrote in news:nru12l$bmt$ [e-mail]:

This is true. I recall in Chem Lab we exploded a small amount of extremely fine mesh nickel powder(*). You wouldn't normally consider nickel flammable, but ground finely enough it will burn (as will many metals).

It's worth noting, tho, that a lot of things that will explode are fairly hard to ignite. An open flame is a sure way to get things started.

(* no-one quite knew why we had a jar of nickel powder in the lab, as best we could figure it was left over from something a long-gone professor had been working on.)

John

[ads]

The likelihood of injury greatly reduced by being outside. That must explosive force inside the building would have shattered windows and knocked the firefighters into the walls.

[John Grossbohlin]

I cleaned up my dust collection system this evening (piping, hoses, separator, bags, etc.). I noticed it was full and dusty last weekend and this video was a good motivator! LOL

[Leon]

That and protective fire fighting gear. Had some one been near with out protective gear they would have been toast, regardless ow where they were, inside or out.

[Electric Comet]

seems bad judgement to be so close knowing the potential

it was a fire then dust explosion

clearly there is a fire and that triggered the explosion and that is a lot different than a spark initiating that

[Spalted Walt]

Road flare ignition:

[krw]

I'll have to remember not to put a road flare in my dust collector when I blow it out with high volume compressed air.

[Leon]

It's ok to do do that if you blow it out outside. :-)