Combustible Dust Testing

Laboratory testing to quantify dust explosion and reactivity hazards

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Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

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Laboratory testing to quantify explosion hazards for vapor and gas mixtures

UN-DOT
Classification of hazardous materials subject to shipping and storage regulations
Hydrogen
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
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Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Thermal Stability

Safe storage or processing requires an understanding of the possible hazards associated with sensitivity to variations in temperature

Adiabatic Calorimetry
Data demonstrate the consequences of process upsets, such as failed equipment or improper procedures, and guide mitigation strategies including Emergency Relief System (ERS) design
Reaction Calorimetry
Data yield heat and gas removal requirements to control the desired process chemistry
Battery Safety

Testing to support safe design of batteries and electrical power backup facilities particularly to satisfy UL9540a ed.4

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

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Evaluate electrical cables to demonstrate reliability and identify defects or degradation
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Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
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ISO/IEC 17025:2017

Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 in the field of Testing

ISO 9001:2015
Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO 9001:2015
Dust Hazards Analysis
Evaluate your process to identify combustible dust hazards and perform dust explosion testing
On-Site Risk Management
On-site safety studies can help identify explosibility and chemical reaction hazards so that appropriate testing, simulations, or calculations are identified to support safe scale up
DIERS Methodology
Design emergency pressure relief systems to mitigate the consequences of unwanted chemical reactivity and account for two-phase flow using the right tools and methods
Deflagrations (Dust/Vapor/Gas)

Properly size pressure relief vents to protect your processes from dust, vapor, and gas explosions

Effluent Handling

Pressure relief sizing is just the first step and it is critical to safely handle the effluent discharge from an overpressure event

FATE™ & Facility Modeling

FATE (Facility Flow, Aerosol, Thermal, and Explosion) is a flexible, fast-running code developed and maintained by Fauske and Associates under an ASME NQA-1 compliant QA program.

Mechanical, Piping, and Electrical
Engineering and testing to support safe plant operations and develop solutions to problems in heat transfer, fluid, flow, and electric power systems
Hydrogen Safety
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
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Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
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Safety analysis to underpin decomissioning process at facilities which have produced or used radioactive nuclear materials
Adiabatic Safety Calorimeters (ARSST and VSP2)

Low thermal inertial adiabatic calorimeters specially designed to provide directly scalable data that are critical to safe process design

Other Lab Equipment and Parts for the DSC/ARC/ARSST/VSP2 Calorimeters

Products and equipment for the process safety or process development laboratory

FERST

Software for emergency relief system design to ensure safe processing of reactive chemicals, including consideration of two-phase flow and runaway chemical reactions

FATE

Facility modeling software mechanistically tracks transport of heat, gasses, vapors, and aerosols for safety analysis of multi-room facilities

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Recent Posts

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis

Posted by Fauske & Associates on 10.11.16

By Samad Erogbogbo, Fauske & Associates, LLC (FAI)

Simply put, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) is a state-of-the-art technique that is used to study and characterize the mechanical properties of a wide range of materials.  See Figure 1 below for an image of the machine used by Fauske & Associates, LLC (FAI) for DMA. Many materials, including polymers, are viscoelastic.  That is, they behave both like an elastic solid and a viscous fluid. For viscous materials the shear and tensile stress are a function of velocity whereas for elastic materials, the stresses are a function of deformation. A depiction of the viscoelastic nature of materials is presented in Figure 2.  DMA machines differ from other mechanical testing devices in two important ways. First, typical tensile test devices focus only on the elastic component. In many applications, the viscous component is critical. It is the viscous component that determines properties such as impact resistance. Second, tensile test devices work primarily outside the linear viscoelastic range. DMA works primarily in the linear viscoelastic range and is therefore more sensitive to material’s chemistry and microstructure. DMA measures the viscoelastic properties using either transient or dynamic oscillatory tests. Further, these tests can typically be performed at the expected conditions the materials will be exposed to while in service.

The most common test is the dynamic oscillatory test, where a sinusoidal stress (or strain) is applied to the material and a resultant sinusoidal strain (or stress) is measured. Also measured is the phase difference, δ, between the two sine waves. The phase lag will be 0° for purely elastic materials and 90° for purely viscous materials. However, viscoelastic materials (e.g. polymers) will exhibit an intermediate phase difference. From the applied stress and the measurement of δ and strain, the storage modulus, E’, and loss modulus, E’’, can be calculated. The storage modulus (E’) is the elastic component and related to the stiffness of the material. The loss modulus (E’’) is the viscous component and is related to the ability of the material to dissipate mechanical energy through molecular motion. The tangent of the phase difference, or tan δ, is another common parameter that provides information on the relationship between the elastic and inelastic components. The complex modulus (sometimes referred to as dynamic modulus), E*, is calculated using the storage modulus and the loss modulus.

Transient tests include creep and stress relaxation. In creep, a stress is applied to the sample and held constant while deformation is measured vs. time. After some time, the stress is removed and the recovery is measured. In stress relaxation, a deformation is applied to the sample and held constant, and the degradation of the stress required to maintain the deformation is measured versus time. See below for other meaningful creep and stress relaxation parameters that can be obtained from DMA.

The DMA machine can perform many unidirectional types of tests that are classified as dynamic oscillatory tests or transient tests with these general test configurations: Cantilever, Three-Point Bend, Tension, and Compression. The following are brief descriptions of the unidirectional tests the DMA machine can perform:

  • Transient
    •  Stress Relaxation
      • Deformation applied instantaneously ⇒ Force measured as a function of time
      • Deformation (mm) converted to Strain (e), Force (N) to Stress (t)
      • Stress (t)/Strain(e) = Modulus (E)
    •  Creep
      • Force applied instantaneously Deformation measured as a function of time
      • Force to Stress (t), Deformation converted to Strain (e)
      • Strain (e)/Stress (t) = Compliance (D)
  •  Dynamic
    • Strain Ramp
      • Strain increased linearly or exponentially with time
      • Iso-Strain
        • Strain held constant as temperature is varied
    • Stress Ramp
      • Stress increased linearly or exponentially with time
    • Controlled Stress
      • Stress held constant as temperature is varied

As mentioned earlier, the DMA is used to study and characterize mechanical properties of materials. The characterization is however not limited to stand-alone materials; the DMA could also be used to characterize assembled materials to understand the in-service behavior for the as-assembled configuration. To fully understand materials or assembled components, engineers sometimes use short-term test information obtained from a DMA test to project long-term performance to avoid unexpected failures for a specific application.

DMA Use Cases

The results obtained from the DMA machine can be used for a variety of purposes including some already highlighted above. Here are a few more potential use cases:

  1. Determining material properties for engineered materials to be used as input in Finite Element Modeling (FEM) or other analyses.
  2. Characterization and prediction of failure modes for assembled components at service conditions.
  3. Root cause analysis investigations – The in-service load on a component or material could be simulated to determine the evolution of the material properties before failure occurred.

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Figure 1  TA Instruments Q800 Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) Machine

 

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Figure 2  Viscoelastic nature of materials

For more information or discussion, please comment here or contact us at info@fauske.com.  www.fauske.com

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