(133a) Flameless Vent Testing

Flameless vents were developed and marketed for the first time over 25 years ago.  The technology has evolved and been applied effectively in a wide range of applications involving many different types of dust.  As the application and installation of flameless vents has expanded, there have been both successes along with some failures pointing to a need to develop more knowledge about the safe application of the technology.  Questions include learning the effective limiits for dust loading, vessel size, combustion characteristics such as Kst and Pmax, melting and fibrous dust effects, and pressure variations.  How would flameless vents hold up when exposed to environmental factors such as vibration, elevated temperature, and corrosive environments?  Perhaps the most significant testing involved full scale tests with optimal explosion concentrations.  Although there has been some skepticism concerning the need for such rigorous testing, the reasons for conducting tests in this manner will be explained and their significance made clear. This new test methodology was developed and conducted by FM Global at their new test facility in Rhode Island.  Our company, CV Technology, Inc., introduced flameless venting to North America and having assumed that mantle of leadership, also is the first to undergo the full battery of tests.  The purpose of this paper is to outline what was learned and why the results are vitally important to the future safe use of flameless venting devices.