Combustible Dust Hazards: Assessment, Prevention and Protection

Dust explosions occur in a wide range of industrial sectors and often lead to injury, lost production and sometime fatalities. Powders form explosible dust clouds when the particle size is small, moisture content is low, and the concentration of dust in the atmosphere falls between certain critical limits. Measures can be taken to reduce the likelihood of dust explosion occurring in your process plant and a variety of safeguarding measures are available to control explosion forces if a dust explosion does occur. It is critical to be able to answer the question, ‘why is my plant safe’, which introduces the concept of ‘Basis of Safety’.

A primary focus of this 90-minute accredited training is the work of The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which has recognized the common threads through all its existing dust-hazard-related standards and sought to consolidate the best general practices for all combustible solids, irrespective of industry and powder/dust type, in the new NFPA 652: Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust.