Ignition probability of fuel gas-air mixtures due to mechanical impacts between stainless steel components

The ignition probability of gaseous mixtures of acetylene, hydrogen and ethylene with air due to mechanical impacts between stainless steel components was examined for various impact energies. Additionally, the sources of ignitions were identified by infrared high-speed recordings. The stainless steel types used had different chemical compositions in order to investigate the influence of the chromium content on the ignition probability. The investigations reveal different ignition probabilities of the gas mixtures as well as different sources of ignitions depending on the steel type used and the impact energy applied. Impact energies below 126 J resulted in ignition of the gaseous mixture at the hot surfaces of the pin or the plate in most of the cases. At higher energies, initiation of ignition due to abraded particles was more probable when using stainless steel components with lower chromium content whereas the source of ignition was almost exclusively limited to the hot surfaces of pin and plate for the steel with the highest chromium content. However, as opposed to the source of ignition, the probability of ignition could not be correlated to the chromium content of the stainless steel.