Experimental Study on the Ignition of Hydrogen Containing Atmospheres by Mechanical Impacts

In international regulations on explosion protection mechanical friction, impact or abrasion is usually named as one of 13 ignition sources that must be avoided in hazardous zones with explosive atmospheres. In different studies it is even identified as one of the most frequent ignition sources in practice. The effectiveness of mechanical impacts as ignition source is dependent from several parameters including the minimum ignition energy of the explosive atmosphere, the properties of the material pairing, the kinetic impact energy or the impact velocity. By now there is no standard procedure to determine the effectiveness of mechanical impacts as ignition source. In some previous works test procedures with poor reproducibility or undefined kinetic impact energy were applied for this purpose. In other works, only homogeneous material pairings were considered. In this work the effectiveness of mechanical impacts with defined and reproducible kinetic impact energy as ignition source for hydrogen containing atmospheres was studied systematically in dependence from the inhomogeneous material pairing considering materials with practical relevance like stainless steel, low alloy steel, concrete, and non-iron-metals. It was found that ignition can be avoided, if non-iron metals are used in combination with different metallic materials, but in combination with concrete even the impact of non-iron-metals can be an effective ignition source if the kinetic impact energy is not further limited. Moreover, the consequence of hydrogen admixture to natural gas on the effectiveness of mechanical impacts as ignition source was studied. In many cases ignition of atmospheres containing natural gas by mechanical impacts is rather unlikely. No influence could be observed for admixtures up to 25% hydrogen and even more. The results are mainly relevant in the context of repurposing the natural gas grid or adding hydrogen to the natural gas grid. Based on the test results, it can be evaluated under which circumstances the use of tools made of non-iron-metals or other non-sparking materials can be an effective measure to avoid ignition sources in hazardous zones containing hydrogen, for example during maintenance work.