Research on Explosion Suppression Characteristics of Aluminum Silicate Wool in 90° Bend

Experiments were conducted in 90̊ bend with C3H8/Air premixed gas to study the explosion suppression characteristics of aluminum silicate wool in different locations and lengths. The macrostructure of aluminum silicate wool was observed thanks to the scanning electron microscope (SEM for short) before and after the experiment. The suppression mechanism of aluminum silicate wool was analyzed according to both the experimental data and SEM. The results indicate that, explosion overpressures of testing points in the intrados of the bend are lower than those in the extrados positions, which decline firstly and then rise. The overpressure in the bend shows a trend of firstly decreasing and then increasing again with the increase of the distance between aluminum silicate wool and ignition source. The aluminum silicate wool is a kind of three-dimensional porous and skeleton structure with high elastic property and specific area seen from SEM. Moreover, the collapse of the space in the skeleton structure and the fracture of the fibers could absorb energy from explosion effectively and hence attenuate the explosion overpressure.