Mining Institute, Perm Federal Research Center, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Perm, Russia:

S. Ya. Zhikharev, Chief Researcher, Doctor of Engineering Sciences

Saint-Petersburg University of State Fire Service of EMERCOM of Russia, Saint-Petersburg, Russia:
V. A. Rodionov, Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, 79213258397@mail.ru
L. V. Pikhkonen, Head of Chair, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

Investigating coal dust infl ammation conditions resulting in many instances in explosions and disastrous effects requires close attention and innovative approaches involving advanced instrumental procedures and up-to-date research equipment. This article’s authors discuss the equipment (instruments and installations) which make it possible to obtain several characteristics both of technological properties and explosion/fire risk of coal dust in the tests and, thereby, to propose an integrated approach to the analysis of coal dust of different fineness. It is recommended to use up-to-date (innovative) methods of analyzing different-fineness coal dust samples. Such methods enable determination of technological properties and explosion/fire risk data of coal dust. In the article, a number of methods of synchronous thermal analysis are discussed: thermal gravimetric, differential thermogravimetric, differential thermal analysis and differential scanning calorimetry in various combinations of the first two methods with the third or the fourth. The first combination allows determining moisture, volatile yield and final ash content. In the second case, it is suggested to obtain fire risk data: temperatures of incomplete combustion, inflammation and spontaneous ignition. The experimental analysis of coal dust fire (explosion) data was carried out using a 20-l blasting chamber. The experimental research findings show that for the coal ranks currently produced in the Kuznetsk and Pechora Basins, the explosion/fire risk data, namely, maximum burst pressures and rates of increase in burst pressure are achieved at the coal dust concentration of 100 g/m³. For the tested ranks of the Kuznetsk and Pechora coal, the maximum burst pressure was 0.7–0.8 MPa and the rate of increase in burst pressure was 43–50 MPa/s, which implied high explosion/fire risk data of the coal dust samples. It was found that the most hazardous were the coal dust sample particles having fineness of 63–94 μm.

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