Numerical investigation of explosion suppression by inert particles in straight ducts

This paper is devoted to the mitigation of explosions in long galleries by means of an inert dust cloud. In practice, this technique bases on mounting shelves under the roof, on which the inert dust is distributed. This issue was numerically investigated in this research. The medium was assumed to be a two-phase mixture consisting of a fast flowing gas (representing the explosion) and a cloud of solid particles (representing the dust phase). The model makes use of the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, where the solid particles are modelled as moving points, interacting with the gas flow. The objective was to analyse the suppression process and compare with experimental findings. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.