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Author
Grumer, J. | Bruszak, A. E.
Title
Inhibition of Coal Dust-Air Flames.
Coporate
Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA
Report
RI 7552, August 1971, 18 p.
Distribution
Available from National Technical Information Service
Keywords
coal dusts | coal mines | inhibitors | monnex (trademark) | flame speed | flame propagation | wall temperature | halons | Purple K
Identifiers
wall quenching; rock dust
Abstract
Nine dust and gaseous inhibitors of propagating coal dust-air flames (lean, stoichiometric, and rich) were evaluated in a newly developed 15-cm-id, 3.6-meter-long instrumented flame duct, under conditions such that wall quenching was virtually absent and the dust concentration was temporally and spacially uniform to within about ±5 percent. Listed roughly in order of increasing efficiency, the inhibitors evaluated were rock dust (calcium carbonate), powdered oyster shells (calcium carbonate), Halon 1301 (trifluorobromomethane), Halon 1211 (difluorochlorobromomethane), sodium chloride, Super-K (potassium chloride), regular-grade fire extinguishant powder (sodium bicarbonate), Purple-K (potassium bicarbonate), and Monnex (potassium bicarbonate combined with urea). Experiments were extended to clouds containing 1 and 2 volume-percent of methane. The inhibition of lean, scoichiometric, and rich methane-air flames without coal dust was also examined in a few instances; results agreed with those obtained for coal dust-air flames.