Minimizing Dust Explosion Risk of Food, Ag Powders and Solids

To reduce dust explosion hazards and achieve compliance with NFPA standards, industries such as food and agriculture that process, handle, and package dry particulate matter must now consider the specific steps to take after dust hazard analysis (DHA).

Clive Nixon, sales manager at BS&B Pressure Safety Management--a Tulsa, OK-based manufacturer of a range of dust explosion prevention and protection technologies--addresses key questions that agricultural and food processing companies have regarding dust hazard analysis, NFPA 61 compliance, and leading options to address combustible dust explosion risk.

Q: Can you provide us with a brief background related to the 2022 DHA compliance deadline and related hazard risks?

A: For the agricultural and food processing industries, January 1, 2022 was the deadline for completion of a dust hazard analysis (DHA) for existing facilities in accordance with Chapter 7 of the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) Standard 61 (2020), for the Prevention of Fires and Dust Explosions in Agricultural and Food Processing Facilities.

NFPA 61 and other related NFPA Standards detail essential strategies and procedures for the protection of people, processes, and property from the hazards presented by fires and dust explosions in facilities handling, processing, and storing bulk grains such as corn, wheat, oats, barley, sunflower seeds, and soybeans, their by-products, as well as other agricultural related combustible dusts. All new processes and facilities handling and generating combustible dusts are now required to perform a DHA.

Appendix F of NFPA 61 (2020) provides a comprehensive checklist that serves as a blueprint for generating a DHA. This checklist includes evaluating the dust explosion protection for process equipment that can often be at risk such as bucket elevators, conveyors, grinders, silos, and systems for spray drying and dust collection.

Q: What next steps need to be considered now following DHA completion?

A: Following preparation of the DHA document, the DHA team must then develop an action plan for the identified hazards and prepare a prioritized action item list with specific tasks, assigned parties, target timeframes, and required resources. This serves as both a road map for hazard reduction and a working document demonstrating reasonable effort towards managing risk. Recommendations for addressing deficiencies in managing combustible dust hazards must be documented and addressed in a timely fashion acceptable to the authority having jurisdiction.

The DHA is only the starting point for bringing a facility and process into compliance with the relevant NFPA standards. The next step is implementation. Before DHA implementation, owner/operators should ask these questions:

Q: When should a DHA be reviewed or updated, and when is expert consultation warranted?

A: Reviewing or updating the DHA with a safety expert is important if anything is missing or unclear, since the risk and potential liability of insufficient compliance and protection can be very costly if a combustible dust explosion were to occur in a facility.

There are a range of solutions to provide cost-effective protection against the combustible dust hazard, but each facility’s choice will vary depending on their specific needs. The technology selection should not only consider factors such as the nature of the dust hazard and its characteristics, but also equipment location, strength, operating pressures, temperatures, and process interconnections.

Q: What are the primary options for explosion protection and prevention in grain and food processing facilities?

A: The primary options for explosion protection and prevention in grain and food processing facilities broadly include explosion venting, explosion suppression, and explosion isolation.

Q: Can you explain explosion venting in more detail?

A: Venting is the most widely adopted protection mechanism because it frequently provides a convenient and economical solution. While it is often perceived as a fit-and-forget solution, it does require regular inspection per NFPA 68. It is often the most practical solution for equipment located outside or near to an outside wall where there is a clear path for the projection of a dust explosion fireball to a safe area where it will not endanger people or damage equipment or nearby structures.

During the early stages of a dust explosion, explosion relief vents open rapidly at a predetermined burst pressure. This allows the rapidly expanding combustion gases and dust/air mixture to escape to the atmosphere and limit the pressure generated within the equipment to calculated safe limits. Most agricultural dust materials would develop a pressure in excess of 100 psi in a fraction of a second if the process enclosure was sufficiently strong. 

Q: Can you give an example of explosion venting and some considerations when implementing it?

A: As an example, explosion panels can be applied to bucket elevators located outside, or close to an outside wall where the dust explosion can be safely vented to the outside via short vent ducts. These vents are mounted onto the leg casing(s) and elevator head and open rapidly to relieve the explosion pressure of a rapidly burning dust, known as a deflagration.

For venting solutions, the method of sizing vents and the strength of the equipment is an important consideration. The sizing of vents for bucket elevators handling raw grain is covered by NPFA 61. For processed grain, NFPA 61 defers to NFPA 68, in which the required strength of the equipment is dictated by the material explosivity index (Kst value). The vent area calculation basis is not the same for raw grain and processed grain, with the arising vent quantity and position typically different for the two forms of material.

The path for the explosion relief flame ball and the accessibility of the vent panels for occasional inspection and maintenance are important considerations when selecting this method of protection. These are covered in NFPA 61 - 2020 section 9.3.14 and NFPA 68 – 2018 section 8.8.

Q: Are there limitations to using explosion venting? If so, what do you recommend?

A: There are some applications such as where the boot of a bucket elevator or other food processing equipment is inside a building or below grade. That creates a challenge for explosion relief venting due to the release of flame and pressure into a confined space, requiring different protection approaches such as flameless venting and suppression.

Where equipment is located inside, or where people or combustible material are present, conventional vents--which will release a fireball--can be replaced by flameless vents. These vents are designed to diffuse the pressure wave and eliminate the flame that would normally be projected by a vented explosion.

For applications outside of the grain, feed, and food industries, consideration should be given to the potential of toxic byproducts being generated during activation of these devices when located inside a building. For all applications, a safety zone shall be established around the flameless vent which will emit hot gases for a short time when venting a deflagration.

Q: Can you explain how flameless vents work?

A: Flameless vents consist of a conventional vent mounted in front of a housing that incorporates a stainless steel mesh that extracts the heat of the deflagration, while allowing the explosively expanding gases to be discharged safely. This mesh arrests the flame front and acts at least partially to filter the release of dust and soot. The stainless steel mesh represents a restriction to flow, and an allowance is made for this by assigning a vent efficiency to ensure selection of the correct size of vent. The mesh is configured to partially absorb the pressure wave of the expanding gases and to capture dust and soot particles to a varying degree that determines the “vent efficiency” of the flameless venting device.

Vent efficiency may typically range between 50% and 95%, which means that a flameless vent area calculation is going to be larger than a conventional vent for the same application. Great care on this point is required whenever considering replacement of a conventional vent with a flameless vent.

The weight and vent efficiency of flameless vents are considered when selecting them for applications such as the protection of bucket elevators. The relevant codes are NFPA 61 - 2020 section 9.3.14 and NFPA 68 – 2018 section 8.8.

Q: Can you explain how explosion suppression systems operate?

A: Explosion suppression systems are designed to suppress a deflagration in its initial stage before destructive pressure can be generated. This is in contrast to explosion venting, which allows the deflagration to proceed to completion while exposing the equipment to combustion temperatures. 

Explosion suppression equipment is designed to respond in milliseconds to the signal generated by pressure or flame detectors monitoring the process. This results in explosion suppressors rapidly discharging a flame quenching agent, such as sodium bicarbonate, into the protected equipment volumes. This effectively halts the explosion in its infancy and results in a reduced explosion pressure that is safe for the protected equipment.

Q: What are some examples of situations where explosion suppression systems are indicated?

A: Suppression systems can be desirable because the speed of cleanup and refit allows for a quick return to production. With venting or flameless venting, the explosion fully develops in the process equipment, requiring cleanup, mitigation of fire-related damage, and other consequences that take time to get the process back into operation.

The suppression method of protection is often applied to double leg bucket elevators, used in grain handling. Protection consists of explosion detection and suppression of the elevator head and boot section, as well as explosion isolation of the leg casings, feed and discharge points, and dust extraction points.

Suppression of single-leg bucket elevators is also practical in grain applications, although the open internal volume between boot and head will require additional extinguishing agent injection points. Most importantly, whether applied to a double-leg or single-leg bucket elevator, suppression systems are recommended to incorporate explosion isolation to prevent the propagation of an explosion to connected equipment volumes such as silos.

Q: Can you explain explosion isolation and how it fits into any explosion protection strategy?

A: Explosion isolation is a vital component to any explosion protection strategy. The propagation of a dust explosion can result in secondary events in connected equipment which can be more destructive than the initial event. Isolation should be considered for all process interconnections such as inlet ducts, discharge ducts, and dust extraction points.

Although explosion isolation is a component of explosion suppression systems, it is not an intrinsic feature of explosion venting systems. When explosion vents are selected for explosion protection, a means of chemical or mechanical isolation must be considered to prevent explosion propagation to interconnected process volumes via inlet ducts, outlet ducts, conveyors, and dust extraction points. See NFPA 69 for compliant solutions and refer to NFPA 61-2020 section 9.7.4.

While it can be tempting for the owner/operator to consider applying partial protection to a process system, care must be taken to manage the risk both from and to connected equipment. A piece of unprotected equipment can be the Achilles heel to a facility protection plan.

Nixon concludes that careful consideration is recommended to manage the risk of dust explosion while protecting personnel, facilities, and systems. Owners and operators are best served by working with an expert supplier with access to a complete range of safety solutions for a particular application.

For more information, contact BS&B Safety Systems (Tulsa, OK) at 918-622-5950 or [email protected], or visit www.bsbsystems.com.