Minimum ignition energy of LDPE dust/ethylene hybrid mixture

Abstract

An experimental device for evaluating the minimum ignition energy (MIE) of LDPE dust/ethylene hybrid mixture was built with the innovative mixing mode. The MIE of the hybrid mixture that contained ethylene below its lower explosive limit (LEL) was studied. The result indicated that adding a small amount of ethylene significantly reduced the MIE of the original dust cloud. All the MIEs with five different particle sizes were found to show similar trends of exponential attenuation with the increase of ethylene concentration; such attenuating effect grew as the dust particle size rose. When ethylene concentration increased and approached to its LEL, the reaction mechanism dominated by combustible dust turned into one dominated by combustible gas. The MIE decreased first and then increased with the dust mass and increased with the dust particle size. A multifactor mathematical correlation model of the MIE with the dust particle size and ethylene concentration was developed.