Technology Factsheet

Explosion Suppression / Mitigation

Category: Worker Health & Safety > Engineering Controls > Explosion Suppression
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In some instances, ignition source control is not sufficient to provide the level of safety required in a plant design and measures must be taken to suppress or mitigate the effects of an explosion. Two techniques which show promise as such measures are being investigated. Oxygen availability controls the speed of any explosion and so reducing oxygen concentration can suppress or mitigate the overpressure experienced by a containment system, even where it is not possible to meet international inerting standards. Water misting can be used to remove the heat from an initial ignition and by a different mechanism to oxygen control, to either suppress or mitigate an explosion. Alternative water misting technologies have been identified and characterized and experiments have shown how effective an ultrasonic generation technique is at suppressing an explosion. To support the development of a hydrogen hazard management strategy for silo retrievals, full scale experiments investigating explosion suppression / mitigation have also been carried out at HSL Buxton. These have investigated the complex interaction of non-uniform mixtures of nitrogen / oxygen / hydrogen and the possibility of an explosion.