Explosion characteristics of coal gas under various initial temperatures and pressures

Explosion limits data are essential for a quantitative risk assessment of explosion hazard associated with the use of coal gas. The present work is to investigate the influence of various initial temperatures and pressures on explosion characteristics of coal gas/air mixture. The explosion limits and the minimum ignition energy of coal gas/air mixture are obtained experimentally at various temperatures ranging from 20 to 80°C and pressures ranging from 0.1 to 0.2 MPa. An empirical equation is established from the experimental results for the effects of initial temperatures and pressures on explosion limits. By adding diluent (nitrogen) into coal gas/air mixtures, the dilution effects on the explosion limits have been explored as well, and a critical flammable concentration of coal gas is determined to be at 7.4–9.0% by volume. By means of a high-speed digital video camera, the flame front development is recorded and analyzed. The tests are carried out with lean, stoichiometric and rich mixtures of coal gas in air under the conditions of initial pressure and nitrogen addition. Furthermore, the influence of the initial pressure and the concentration on the explosion pressure is measured and compared against theoretical results, where a good agreement is observed.