sigma-hse-logo
sigma-hse-logo-expanded
sigma-hse-logo-expanded

What are Pmax and Kst? A quick guide to dust explosion data

Combustible dusts have the potential to present serious hazards across many process industries. This can be in the form of flash fires or explosions. Many industries handle combustible dusts as their main product and still more generate combustible dusts as a by-product of a manufacturing process that uses combustible materials. Organisations must be aware of the dangers posed by dust (explosions) and must undertake rigorous dust testing.

Dust explosions occur because of a release of fine dust particles into the air (oxygen), which are then ignited by a source of ignition (hot surface, flame, or spark etc.). The sensitivity of such ignition can be determined by the Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE), Minimum Ignition Temperature (MIT) and Layer Ignition Temperature (LIT) tests.

These explosions are a hazard in industrial and commercial settings where the presence of a flammable atmosphere and an ignition source is present. Combustible dust and powders may include wood, agricultural products, metals, spices and pharmaceutical APIs and excipients. It is recommended that dust or powders be professionally tested before system designs are finalised, or when looking to change aspects of a process. 

As potentially combustible dust or powder can gather in areas of a process where they may not be easily detected or accessible, organisations must take preventative action to maintain safety in the workplace. Proper housekeeping, the undertaking of risk assessments and ensuring that correct equipment and effective safety precautions are in place to prevent dust explosions are just a few examples of a thorough process safety strategy.

Multiple parameters can be used to characterise dust and powder combustibility. Pmax and Kst are two important measurements for characterising explosion severity, and an understanding of these measurements and their relationship with dust safety will aid in the creation and maintenance of holistic process safety mitigation strategies. 

What is combustible dust?

Before looking into Pmax and Kst as explosion characteristic values, we must first seek to understand what dust explosions are. Dust in the work environment can be created when materials are: 

  • Transported  

  • Handled

  • Processed

  • Polished

  • Ground

  • Shaped

  • Abrasive blasted

  • Cut

  • Crushed

  • Mixed

  • Sifted

  • Screened (dry materials)

What are combustible dust hazards?

Flash fires occur when dust is lofted into a cloud and ignited, and explosions occur when combustible dust particles are lofted into a cloud and ignited in an enclosed space. 

When these particles are mixed with oxygen (air), combustible particles, and placed in contact with an ignition source, rapid combustion occurs

A source of ignition can be described as an object, process or event that can ignite or transmit combustion. A few examples of ignition sources could be the result of flame or hot surface, spontaneous ignition, friction, or electrostatic discharge.

Developing prevention measures to eliminate combustible dust hazards starts with the identification of combustible dust in the workplace.

Defining dust hazards

Although the technical definitions for combustible dust vary from country to country, having a basic understanding of what could be a combustible dust will help. We have listed a few descriptions below, but if you are unsure if your materials could be classified as combustible dust, please get in contact.

  • The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States define combustible dusts as ‘a solid material composed of distinct particles or pieces, regardless of size, shape, or chemical composition, which presents a fire or deflagration hazard when suspended in air or some other oxidizing medium over a range of concentrations.’

  • The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) (also in the United States) define combustible dust as ‘a finely divided combustible particulate solid that presents a flash-fire hazard or explosion hazard when suspended in air or the process-specific oxidizing medium over a range of concentrations.’ This can be found in Standard 652-2019, The Fundamentals of Combustible Dust.

  • The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the United Kingdom state that “Quite generally, the advice applies to anything which can burn, and which exists in a fine powdered form, unless tests show that particular hazards are not present.”

Although most dust/powders that may form a cloud in the air have the potential to explode, not all materials will do so. Controlling the hazard presented in handling combustible dust requires both a thorough understanding of, and reliable data on, the physical properties of each material. It is therefore recommended that all materials be professionally tested.

What is Pmax?

Pmax (a brief overview) – Maximum pressure, the greatest amount of pressure and maximum amount of damage that your dust can cause in an enclosed space.

Dust and powder particles transfer heat to adjoining particles creating a chain reaction during the combustion phase. Following this, and during the primary stages of an explosion, the heat and gasses produced by combustion can lead to an increase in pressure.

Pmax, therefore, provides data on the maximum achievable pressure that can be generated during an explosion. If an explosion begins in a closed vessel that is strong enough to contain the combustion phase, then the dust cloud will continue to burn until there is not enough fuel or air left.

Pmax is measured by dispersing a material in a 20-Litre spherical testing chamber whilst initiating ignition using strong ignition sources, such as a chemical ignitor. Data created via the 20-Litre demonstrates what the maximum explosion pressure would be under optimum concentration. The test is conducted by increasing the concentration of dust inside the closed chamber and measuring the pressure of the explosion until a maximum is reached.

Pmax measurement is usually independent of vessel size. So, when testing materials and their hazardous properties in a 20-Litre testing vessel, the same pressure will usually occur in a similar real-world environment. The results of this test can be used to design deflagration containment, venting and suppression systems.

The maximum rate of pressure rise

(dP/dt) max – Maximum rate of pressure rise, before an explosion runs out of oxygen and fuel

The maximum rate of explosion pressure rise seeks to understand the result of pressure combustion acceleration inside a vessel, and the rapid increase after an explosion has occurred. As the rate of pressure rise reduces after an explosion runs out of oxygen or fuel, the maximum rate of pressure rise analyses the point just before the explosion reduces. When looking at the test data via a graph, the maximum rate of pressure is the point at which an increasing gradient is at its highest.

The measured dP/dtmax is a function of the vessel size used in dust testing.

What is Kst?

Kst (a brief overview) = (dP/dt)max x V1/3 is a dust constant, therefore normalising the maximum rate of pressure rise in a 1m cubic vessel. Kst is characteristic of the material not the test vessel size.

Although maximum explosion pressure can be independent of vessel size, the rate of explosion pressure is not. Therefore, the larger the volume of a vessel, the lower the maximum rate of pressure rise will be. Within Kst, there are specific categories from which powders can be grouped:

Kst Classes:

St0 0 bar.m.s-1 – Does not explode

St1 1 to 200 bar.m.s-1 – Weak explosion

St2 201 to 300 bar.m.s-1 – Strong explosion

St3 > 300 bar.m.s-1 – Very strong explosion

These categorised groups easily signal the level of explosion severity. A material that has zero risk will be grouped as (Kst = 0) and will therefore be an St 0 dust. All other materials will have an explosion hazard attached. Even though a higher Kst value demonstrates that a dust has a more ‘active’ danger than those associated with having a lower Kst, ‘Kst value strength’ should not be overlooked. Many well-known explosions can be directly attributed to St 1 class dust groups.

An St 1 dust will generate enough power to cause a flash fire or explosion, which may result in the creation of a sequence of further damage to people, the workplace, and the environment. Businesses must be aware of, and should develop effective dust hazard mitigation strategies to prevent such accidents from occurring. This can be accomplished by testing dusts and powders to determine ‘Pmax’ and ‘Kst’ values, to allow characterisation of the hazard risk of materials being handled. 

If the Kst of dusts or powders is tested in a 20-Litre sphere laboratory test chamber, it would be possible to work out what the maximum rate of pressure rise would be for a process.

The explosion severity test

All three of these parameters are generated from the explosion severity test. This test is conducted to determine the maximum pressure (Pmax), maximum rate of pressure rise (dP/dt)max and the dust constant Kst value of an ignited powder, dispersed in the air, as a dust cloud.

Working through a range of powder concentrations, a powder is dispersed into a 20L explosion vessel (sphere) using dry compressed air. These suspended dust clouds are then exposed to a large 10 kJ chemical ignition source and the following explosion is monitored, measured, and recorded, using high-accuracy piezoelectric transducers. Testing is conducted over a wide range of powder concentrations which enables flammability curves of Pmax, dP/dt & Kst to be generated, alongside peak values.

Data generated by the explosion severity test is predominantly used for either the design of explosion protection systems (venting, containment, or suppression) or to confirm if a material is appropriate for processes within an established explosion protection system. 

At Sigma-HSE, we can complete the explosion severity test to the following standards: BS EN 14034 parts 1 & 2 / ASTM E1226. You can download our schedule of accreditation here.

How to use Kst and Pmax data

Organisations across multiple industries have their combustible dust and powders tested to ensure regulatory compliance and to guarantee that the equipment in their processes can be installed and/or modified to ensure safety and business continuity.

Effective Kst and Pmax dust testing data will support the creation of explosion hazard mitigation strategies. As risk levels can vary between processes, ongoing attentiveness, and effective management of change strategies are required to identify conditions in your plant that might cause a potential safety problem. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that your dust testing strategy and maintenance plans are consistently reviewed and kept up to date.

The impact of Kst and Pmax data

Kst and Pmax are powder characteristic data rather than ‘vessel-related’ data. Any facility or place of work that generates or handles dust should seek to test materials and ensure that they have been categorised correctly. Data from dust testing should be used to aid in the design of or for upgrading existing dust collection systems, dust control processes or general processes that may involve dust.

In many countries, there are regulatory compliance laws for businesses that handle dust in their processes. Any UK site that manages a significant quantity of flammable gas, vapour, dust or powders that have the potential to form an explosive atmosphere will fall under the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations (DSEAR). In the US, owners or operators of facilities that handle combustible dusts, are required to comply with NFPA 652, Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust, and other industry-specific standards.

To develop effective mitigation strategies to prevent such dust hazard accidents or near misses from occurring, it is imperative to characterize hazardous materials that are handled in the process. Dust and powder testing to determine the Kst & Pmax values will validate the design of protective measures including proper housekeeping, spark detection, explosion venting, explosion suppression and explosion containment.

Conclusion

Protecting your people, workplace, business, and the environment depends on the awareness and maintenance of combustible dust and powder hazards across entire processes. A thorough understanding of how to manage or eliminate these dangers and avoid catastrophe is therefore required.

Sigma-HSE’s combustible dust and powder testing lab offer comprehensive standard and custom dust & powder testing packages to aid you in identifying these hazardous materials and their related risks.

Sigma-HSE are recognised experts in the field of explosion severity testing. Our team of engineers and technical experts are on hand to discuss your requirements and will collaborate with you to provide actionable Pmax and Kst safety solutions that are both cost and time effective. Sigma-HSE’s accredited dust testing laboratory can undertake a full range of further testing, according to the relevant standards with a quick turnaround service.

If you are unsure about any potentially flammable or combustible dusts and how to mitigate related hazards at your facility, please get in touch with Sigma-HSE, as our team of global engineers and technical experts can work with you to create actionable dust testing and consultancy solutions to protect people, the workplace, environment and your business.

We offer a wide range of fire and explosion dust testing solutions for a range of materials and their potentially hazardous properties:

  • Dust Combustibility (Group A/B)

  • Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE)

  • Minimum Ignition Temperature (MIT)

  • Layer Ignition Temperature (LIT)

  • (Pmax/KST) ST Classification

  • Minimum Explosive Concentration (MEC)

  • Limiting Oxygen Concentration (LOC)

  • Burning Behaviour

General enquiries

Are you visiting Sigma-HSE from outside your region? Visit your regional site for more relevant process safety solutions.