A methodology that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of explosion vents and offlameless venting devices is presented in this paper. This methodology is based on aseries of explosion tests conducted in FM Global's 8 m~3 explosion vessel usingcornstarch as an example dust. The overall performance of a flameless venting device isdetermined by its ability to successfully quench a vented explosion (while maintaining itsstructural integrity) and by its total efficiency, which is defined as the ratio of theeffective vent area to the nominal vent area. The functional form of the total efficiency istaken as the product of an area efficiency (i.e., the ratio between the effective vent area ofthe device to that of a burst disc assembled with the device) and a burst efficiency of theburst disc itself (i.e., the ratio of the effective vent area of the burst disc to the nominalvent area). The effective vent areas are calculated from measured reduced overpressuresusing an empirical vent-sizing correlation.
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