Combustible dust fires and explosions are a significant industry hazard. These events can occur within equipment because, in most cases, all the elements required to generate a fire or explosion are present within particulate solids handling equipment except an apparent ignition source. In addition, catastrophic secondary dust explosions can occur when dangerous dust accumulations outside of equipment go unnoticed. To ensure safety and compliance with national codes and standards, Dust Hazard Analyses (DHA) can be an invaluable resource for your facility. Our dust hazard analysis services help you proactively identify combustible dust hazards and create plans to support hazard mitigation effectively.
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Dust Hazard Analysis Services
Our dust hazard analysis (DHA) team is comprised of experts with over 100 combined years of dust hazard management. In addition, most of our experts sit on the relevant NFPA committees that help develop the standards to identify and mitigate combustible dust hazards. For example, BakerRisk is on the committee developing NFPA 660, which will consolidate all relevant standards into a single code by the Fall of 2024.
BakerRisk has also co-authored the industry guidebook, “Guidelines for Combustible Dust Hazard Analysis.” These qualifications make BakerRisk uniquely able to fully interpret and implement the requirements of these standards. As a result, we can offer hazard analysis services like performing high-quality evaluations that provide the most cost-effective and practical solutions to manage combustible dust hazards.
What We Offer
NFPA 652 is the fundamental combustible dust standard that outlines the basic obligations of owners/operators to establish potential combustible dust hazards associated with their processes. The starting point is, through laboratory testing, to determine whether the dust is combustible and/or explosible. If the result is positive, then NFPA 652 requires that a DHA be performed for those processes using or producing combustible dusts.
Audit a facility against the prescriptive elements of applicable industry-specific NFPA standard (i.e., NFPA 61, NFPA 484, NFPA 654, NFPA 655, or NFPA 664) and provide consultation advice on the approaches needed to meet the standard’s requirements (i.e., housekeeping, choice and design of dust collection and explosion protection systems, etc.). These audits are performed as part of a DHA.
Through performance-based (risk) assessment, determine the necessity of safeguards implementation to meet regulatory risk tolerance criteria and provide risk-ranking of compliance gaps to cost-effectively maximize risk reduction. BakerRisk employs What-IF/HAZOP/LOPA or other similar approaches developed through our application of established PSM related work practices to provide maximum benefit to our clients.
Assist with gathering complete, accurate, and objective incident data to perform a cause and origin investigation and provide litigation support as needed.
Facilitate testing of dusts to determine whether the dust is combustible and/or explosible. If determined to be explosible, then additional dust hazard analysis tests can be performed to aid with evaluating potential process hazards. BakerRisk facilitates testing to determine the explosibility characteristics of particulate material and provide recommendations on which combustible dust tests to conduct, how to interpret test results, and what the results mean to the facility owner. The following tests can be performed:
Screen Test (Go/No-Go) Dust Explosibility Screening Test (ASTM E1226)
1m3 and 20L Dust Explosive Severity (Kst/Pmax) (ASTM E1226)
Minimum Explosive Concentration (MEC) for Dusts — (ASTM E1515)
Limiting Oxygen Concentration (LOC) For Dusts — (ASTM E1226)
Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) for Dusts (with or without Inductance) — (ASTM E2019)
Minimum Auto Ignition Temperature (MAIT) of Dust Clouds — (ASTM E1491)
Minimum Dust Layer Ignition Temperature (MIT) — (ASTM E2021)
If a DHA identifies equipment that requires the provision of explosion protection, it must meet some fundamental criteria before the protection systems can be installed. For all types of explosion protection systems, a dynamic pressure increase within the equipment should be expected. This is true whether the equipment is to be installed with deflagration venting, chemical suppression, or is to be designed to contain the maximum explosion pressure. Therefore, the structural capacity of equipment to be provided by explosion protection, or a pipe protected by explosion isolation, must be defined to ensure the equipment design is sufficiently strong to prevent mechanical failure and potentially secondary explosions in the process building where the equipment is located. In many cases for new equipment, the structural capacity is known. However, for legacy equipment, this can be challenging to determine. BakerRisk has the dust hazard analysis tools and expertise to be able to determine the maximum allowable reduced explosion pressure (Pred) that a piece of equipment can withstand in order to appropriately design the mitigation system.
Performing a HAC is a requirement of the NFPA combustible dust standards. The focus of this effort is to minimize the potential for electrical equipment to present a potential ignition source in areas where combustible dust is handled or generated. An HAC study establishes the appropriate rating of the equipment as a function of the likelihood that combustible dust will be present in an area and classifies the area for the appropriate division (or zone) rating.
Stonehouse Partnership
In 2026, BakerRisk and Stonehouse entered a partnership to better support clients and expand each firm’s capabilities. As part of this, BakerRisk is now able to offer combustible dust testing.
We can provide a complete range of laboratory testing for the evaluation of the materials you handle including powders/dusts, liquids, vapors, gases, or solids. We test and measure flammability, combustibility, explosibility, ignition sensitivity, explosion severity, thermal decomposition/self-heating, and electrostatic properties, and more.
The laboratory is accredited in accordance with the recognized International Standard ISO/IEC 17025:2017. This accreditation demonstrates technical competence for a defined scope and the operation of a laboratory quality management system.
Testimonials
Our Dust Hazard Analysis Contributions
US Patent # 11,262,300 B2
Our DHA Specialists
Related Resources
A dust explosion can be sudden and catastrophic, causing deaths, injuries, and destruction of entire buildings.
Hazardous area classification (HAC, formerly electrical area classification) impacts the design and operation of petroleum, chemical processes, and other industrial operations that utilize flammable materials in potentially ignitable atmospheric concentrations in air by requiring ignition source controls.
We are proud to support this conference by championing awareness of combustible dust. Visit our booth to learn how your facility can safeguard against this common hazard in the production industry.
Our team will be presenting the following topics at the Virtual Texas/Louisiana EHS Seminar, June 7 & 8, 2021.
Our team is pleased to exhibit at this conference that provides such a valuable opportunity to advance process safety practices on a global scale.
Performing a combustible dust hazard analysis (DHA) is imperative in order to identify and mitigate dust hazards for any process handling combustible particulates.
Dust collection systems play a critical role in minimizing combustible dust hazards in workplaces, but they aren't without risk. Because they collect hazardous dust particles. these systems must be property designed to protect personnel against fire and explosion hazards. While NFPA standards provide design requirements, hundreds of DHAs have shown that many explosion protection systems are deficient or missing critical components.
New CCPS Guideline for Combustible Dust Hazard Analysis
A potential dust explosion hazard exists any time a combustible dust is stored, handled or processed. Once that fact is recognized, steps can be taken to protect the workers and property at the plant where such operations are conducted. The purpose of this paper is to provide a basic overview of key dust explosion safety considerations. Qualitative guidance is provided on housekeeping and equipment design versus electrical classification.
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