Abstract
Awareness of dust explosion hazards during silo filling operation is important for safety measures. Thus, information on particles-air flow field is required to assess the likelihood of the hazard. Flow field visualization via experimental investigation associated with difficulties and risks. Hence, in the present study, a modeling formulation using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, FLUENT software was employed to predict an insight of flow field distribution, in terms of mean and root mean square (RMS) velocities vectors in cylindrical silo during axial filling. According to the simulation results, predicted flow field has a great influence to the silo height and distance to the silo wall due to gravitational force and movement of fugitive dust and re-circulation of air. The results showed that the predicted data were in very good agreement with experimental data obtained from the literature. The maximum error was around 10%. The study has gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of the particles-air behavior inside industrial equipments during filling operation.
Highlights
Knowledge of flow field distribution in particles-air flow is important for an understanding of dust cloud formation inside industrial equipments
This is due to the chaotic movement of particles-air in the core stream during filling operation
The purpose of this study was to provide a deeper insight into the particles-gas behavior during filling process in silo
Summary
Knowledge of flow field distribution in particles-air flow is important for an understanding of dust cloud formation inside industrial equipments. Silo is the most common equipment used for storing bulk powder. About 80% of bulk powders handled in industries is combustible, which include solid organic materials, metal dusts, chemical dusts, plastic dusts and inorganic non-metallic materials. Handling bulk powder during filling operation is always accompanied by dust emission to the atmosphere. According to an investigation by US Chemical Safety Board (CSB), 13 inorganic combustible dust incidents were identified from 1982 to 2005 that killed 31 workers and injured five. CSB discovered 281 combustible dust incidents between 1980 and 2005 in various dust type, equipments, facilities and work activities triggered by various ignition sources that caused fatalities of 119 workers, 718 injuries and severe damage to industrial facilities [1]
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