THERMAL-EXPLOSION OF DISPERSED MEDIA - CRITICAL CONDITIONS FOR DISCRETE PARTICLES IN AN INERT OR A REACTIVE MATRIX

Classical theories of explosion for isolated reactant particles are ex tended to cover the cases of reactant particles embedded in an inert ( chemically) and a reactive matrix. In these cases the heat released or absorbed by particles influences the heat released or absorbed in the matrix. The critical conditions for ignition in the particles and mat rix may be expressed in terms of the dimensionless groups of the class ical theory psi and delta as well as some other important parameters s uch as beta, gamma or Bi-ov, which relate the physical properties of t he particles and matrix. The different boundary conditions such as the Semenov boundary condition (uniform internal temperature systems) and the Frank-Kamenetskii boundary condition (distributed internal temper ature systems) are investigated. Approximate solutions besides the exa ct ones are used in this study. Important results are obtained showing the effect of thermal interaction between particles and matrix. Copyr ight (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.