ABSTRACT
The most common ways to protect buildings and process installations from internal explosion is explosion venting. The unit is protected by blow-out panels to permit a sufficiently rapid escape of unburned gases and combustion products. The combustion of solid dispersions is important because it constitutes a serious explosion hazard in factories and warehouses. The propagation of a combustion wave within porous or fibrous material combustion, or sometimes at the surface may be manifest as a smouldering process. The difference between smouldering and flaming combustion then lies in the fate of the volatiles. The smouldering propagation rate is an order of magnitude lower than that of firespread by flaming combustion because heat conduction is so much slower than heat transfer by radiation. The products of combustion are often toxic and there are many instances of fires in buildings where the burning polymers have added greatly to the damage caused and to the loss of life.
