|
The most important phase of the investigation has become the ISMAN
development of the chain-thermal explosion theory. The theory is based
on the prerequisite that chain processes in gas-phase combustion play
a determinative role not only at a low pressure but at the atmospheric
pressure and a higher one. This theory allowed to find inhibitors,
which break off chain avalanche, and therefore, in the long run,
reduce explosive power. Such an inhibitor turned out to be the mixture
of burning gases - propane, butane and propylene - taken at a defined
proportion.
To verify the theory in practice, a special blasting chamber is at the
disposal of the researchers. The chamber was made in Severodvinsk by
specialists who design submarines, of special ultrastrong armored
steel, this ideally spherical chamber is capable of standing an
explosion of a ton of trinitrotoluene. No wonder – given the internal
diameter of 12 meters, the deviations from this value make no more
than 10 millimeters at any point of its surface! It is in this chamber
equipped with all necessary facilities that the researchers are making
experiments. They do not simply let in a large quantity of hydrogen
and air and explode it. They use a special reactor – a cone with
piezoelectric sensors and some other measurement instrumentation
placed along its surface and at the vertex. It is because the drastic
reduction of reaction space (at the vertex of cone) enables to
“concentrate” energy of explosion and to achieve maximum high pressure
– up to 1,000 atmospheres.
It has turned out that introduction into the hydrogen/air combustible
mixture of only 1.5 percent of inhibitory mixture allows to reduce the
pressure in the cone by 20 times, and sometimes by 30 times, i.e.,
actually to suppress the explosion! Instead of blowing up, the
dangerous mixture simply burns down – and there is zilch in place of
explosion!
Having made sure that it is possible in principle to suppress the
explosion chemically, the researchers continue their investigations.
They examine reaction mechanisms in more detail, look for new
inhibitors, try to reduce their quantity – this is important both in
terms of ecological and economic considerations. Besides, the authors
have now seriously passed on to search of inhibitors for the air/methane
mixtures – the need for such investigations is evident: mines and
houses with gas-stoves, alas, continue to blow up.
To make the researchers’ effort more effective, a special building has
been erected this year around the chamber, so that the researchers did
not have to stiffen on their “barrel” (as they call the blasting
chamber among themselves) working during a winter snowstorm in
freezing wind.
|
