NFPA 68: How the revised explosion venting guidelines affect your plant
The revised 2002 guidelines, NFPA 68 - Guide for Venting of Deflagrations, make explosion venting an even more attractive explosion-protection option for your process equipment and buildings. Added features and better calculation methods in the revised guidelines can help you determine the right vent size for more applications and, in some cases, allow you to use smaller, less costly vents. After providing some background on dust explosions, venting, and NFPA 68, this article discusses the revised guidelines and how they're likely to affect your plant's explosion-protection practices.
On average, the gross loss for a dust explosion in a US processing plant is about $400,000, according to statistics published in Data Sheet 7-76 by FMGlobal, a major industrial property insurer.1, 2 Dust explosions occur most often in dust collectors, but are also frequent in storage vessels, conveyors, elevators, mixers, mills, grinders, dryers, electrostatic precipitators, and plant buildings.