Investigation on the Explosion Characteristics of an Aluminum Dust-Diethyl Ether-Air Mixture

In this work, the explosion characteristics of an aluminum (Al)-diethyl ether (DEE)-air mixture were investigated in a 20 L spherical vessel. The effect factors of the explosion characteristics considered were fuel concentration, component proportion, and ignition energy. With the increasing concentration of the mixed fuel (Al/DEE = 1:1), the maximum pressure (Pmax), the maximum rate of pressure rise ((dP/dt)max), and the flame propagation speed (νF) exhibit an inversely "U-shaped"curve. The maximum Pmax, (dP/dt)max, and νF values are 901.2 kPa, 148.3 MPa/s, and 15.3 m/s, respectively, corresponding to an optimum concentration of 600 g/m3. The Pmax, the (dP/dt)max, and the νF increase with the addition of DEE when the proportion of DEE is below 55% but have a decrease tendency when the proportion of DEE is over 55%. As the explosions of Al and DEE were mutually promoting, the studied explosion characteristics of the Al-DEE-air mixture are obviously higher than those of pure Al or DEE in air. The minimum ignition energy (MIE) of the Al-DEE-air mixture is 1.9 mJ, between the MIE of Al and DEE. With the increase of ignition energy, Pmax, (dP/dt)max, and νF all increase, while the minimum explosion concentration presents a linear decreasing trend. This work could provide significant scientific evidence for evaluating the explosion risk of the Al-DEE-air mixture.