Furniture Manufacturer Dust Explosion

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

Bill Gill wrote in news:nru12l$bmt$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

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

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.

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

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.

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

Road flare ignition:

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.

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