A change in the air temperature inside a 20-liter chamber when air is added from the receiver

Introduction. One of the reasons for the overestimation of the explosion hazard of dust inside a (20 ± 2)-liter chamber is the elevated initial temperature of the air suspension. The initial temperature is also raised by the process of filling the pre-emptied chamber with air from the receiver, used to distribute dust over the chamber. In this work, an increase in the air temperature inside an 18.7-liter chamber was identified in an experiment for the case of addition of air from the receiver.
The methodology of an experiment. The air temperature in the chamber was measured at the time when the air from the receiver was added using a WR 5/20 thermoelectric converter (a thermocouple). The thermocouple junction was located at the distance of 70 mm from the inner wall of the chamber. The thermocouple signal was processed by an MCLab PRO programmable logic controller (the time resolution is 1 ms).
Research results. The measuring instruments recorded an increase in the temperature of the thermocouple junction by +14 degrees. Due to the comparability of the inertia of the thermocouple (3 s) and the characteristic time of air cooling by the chamber walls (5 s), the measurement results underestimated the real value of a jump in the air temperature inside the chamber. Measurement results were refined using a simple model of heat transfer between the objects involved in the process (thermocouple junction – air – chamber wall) that entailed the exponential relaxation of the temperature difference over time. As a result, an estimated increase in the initial temperature inside the chamber of +30 degrees was identified.
Results and discussion. The temperature jump by +30 degrees makes a noticeable contribution to the total jump in the initial temperature, which was previously tied solely to the burnout of the ignition source (+80 degrees).
Conclusions. Given the known increase in the temperature inside the chamber caused by the burnout of
a standard ignition source (2 kJ), the real value of the initial temperature of the environment can reach 135 °C in the course of studying dust in a (20 ± 2)-liter chamber.

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