Experimental study on the influence of initial pressure on explosion of methane-coal dust mixtures

Methane-coal dust explosion belongs to chemical explosion which always directly causes fire disasters. When it comes to coal mine, the gas explosion easily leads to extensive burning and forms large area stereo fire finally, due to the big blast power and many combustible materials at the scene of an accident. hi order to study the explosion characteristics of methane-coal dust mixture explosion as well as to reveal the effects of initial pressure on the explosion, a rectangular explosion test vessel which is 60 cm long and with 10 cm x 10 cm cross-section was used. Different initial pressures, such as 0.2 MPa, 0.25 MPa, 0.3 MPa and 0.35 MPa were considered in this paper. The explosion pressure was measured with PCB pressure transducers, and the maximum rate of explosion pressure rise was determined based on these measured data. The results show that the maximum explosion overpressure and maximum rate of overpressure rise increase with the increasing of the initial pressures and coal dust concentration. (C) 2013 International Association for Fire Safety Science. Published by Elsevier Ltd.