REMBO interviews Roland Bunse,
Manager of the Explosion Protection Department
at REMBE® GMBH SAFETY + CONTROL, Germany
REMBO: What actually happens when an explosion occurs?
Roland: An explosion is an exothermic combustion process of combustible material in air during which a very strong pressure increase occurs suddenly.
REMBO: Which activators feed an explosion?
Roland: In the explosion triangle you can find the three explosion factors, oxygen in the air, combustible material and of course an ignition source.
REMBO: Let’s assume an explosion cannot be avoided. How can I protect my employees and my plant?
Roland: You protect both if you take care of eliminating the ignition sources. This measure is called explosion prevention. However, if you are not really sure that you can not eliminate them all completely, constructive explosion protection must be implemented. This reduces the negative impacts of an explosion to a safe level.
Rembo: What are the differences when we are talking about constructive explosion protection?
Roland: You can construct your plant 10 bar pressure-resistant against explosions. That means the plant is such strong that even in any explosion incident nothing will be damaged. This measure generally costs a lot of money or cannot be realised for most of the industrial scale plants.
You can also construct your plant to withstand against a certain level of pressure surge. In case of an explosion the vessel may show some deformation but it does not rupture.
Manager of the Explosion Protection Department
at REMBE® GMBH SAFETY + CONTROL, Germany
REMBO: What actually happens when an explosion occurs?
Roland: An explosion is an exothermic combustion process of combustible material in air during which a very strong pressure increase occurs suddenly.
REMBO: Which activators feed an explosion?
Roland: In the explosion triangle you can find the three explosion factors, oxygen in the air, combustible material and of course an ignition source.
REMBO: Let’s assume an explosion cannot be avoided. How can I protect my employees and my plant?
Roland: You protect both if you take care of eliminating the ignition sources. This measure is called explosion prevention. However, if you are not really sure that you can not eliminate them all completely, constructive explosion protection must be implemented. This reduces the negative impacts of an explosion to a safe level.
Rembo: What are the differences when we are talking about constructive explosion protection?
Roland: You can construct your plant 10 bar pressure-resistant against explosions. That means the plant is such strong that even in any explosion incident nothing will be damaged. This measure generally costs a lot of money or cannot be realised for most of the industrial scale plants.
You can also construct your plant to withstand against a certain level of pressure surge. In case of an explosion the vessel may show some deformation but it does not rupture.
