Mitigation of explosion risk in vacuum degassing plants

With the introduction of mechanical vacuum pumps for degassing, methods of efficient gas
cooling and dust separation become necessary to avoid the risk of a combination of a critical offgas
composition along with an ignition point resulting in an explosion. This article reviews how to
undertake a risk assessment and looks at equipment to mitigate the risk.
By Wilhelm Burgmann* & Uwe Zöellig**

* Consultant for Vacuum Metallurgy, (Strasbourg), e-mail wburgmann@burgmann-net.de
** Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum GmbH (Cologne/Germany), e-mail Uwe.Zoellig@oerlikon.com