Agriculture Industry
FAI offers comprehensive services for characterizing, preventing and mitigating fires and explosions due to combustible dust.
Some of our recent agricultural industry services include:
Testing Support
- Develop a cost effective test strategy to characterize material handled at a grain handling facility
- Perform dust explosion testing to determine moisture content, particle size, explosion severity, sensitivity to ignition and minimum explosion concentration
Hazard Assessment
- Conduct an on-site dust hazard assessment based on applicable National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards
Risk Assessment
- Identify and prioritize high risk situations and worked with the customer to develop appropriate and cost effective protection strategies
Safety Program Improvement
- Recommend improvements to existing programs for housekeeping, electrical area classification, management of change (MOC), preventative maintenance and training
Some examples of grain dust explosions in the US include:
Inland Grain Terminal, St. Joseph, MO, April 1980
- Killed 1 person
- Injured 4
- $ 2 M
- Electric arc from damaged level indicator in one of the silos. Explosion traveled through head house to other silos
River Grain Terminal, St. Paul, MN, June 1980
- No fatalities
- 13 injured
- $300K
- Electrician working on live electrical while loading operations were taking place
- Explosion traveled along tunnel to head house and then to bucket elevators and on into other tunnels
Train-Loading Country Grain Terminal, Fonda, IA, July 1980
- No fatalities or injuries
- $ 30K
- Electrical welding on a bucket elevator. Hot work as ignition source. Traveled to other bucket elevators.
Large Export Grain Silo Plant, Corpus Christi, TX, April 1981
- 9 killed
- 30 injured
- $30 M
- Smoldering lumps of grain entering bucket elevator.
- Propagated to other elevators – head house – tunnels – silos and conveyers
OSHA 29CFR 1910.272 in 1987