skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Ignitability of DMSO vapors at elevated temperature and reduced pressure

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/8522· OSTI ID:8522

Ignitability of DMSO vapors have been evaluated at 664 mm Hg pressure. The minimum temperature at which the DMSO vapors that are in equilibrium with liquid DMSO has been determined using two types of strong ignition sources. This temperature is 172 F for chemical igniters, and 178 F for spark ignition. Numerous tests have been conducted using controlled intensity sparks to define the shape of the minimum ignition energy curve as a function of temperature. The ignition energies spanned four orders of magnitude (approximately from 20,000 to 2 mJ) while the DMSO vapor mixture temperature varied from 185 to 207 F. The Sandia Generator was used to simulate worst case electrostatic sparks that can be produced by the human body. Although it was not designed for air discharges, this device had been used by LLNL for 1 mm spark gap and the resultant spark energy had been measured to fall within the range from 3.2 to 8.8 mJ. CRC tests using this device showed that the minimum ignition temperature strongly depends on the spark gap. The minimum ignition temperature was 207 F at 1 mm spark gap, 203 F at 3 mm spark gap, and 197 F at 6 mm spark gap. This strong dependence on the spark gap is believed to be partly due to the changes in the spark energy as the spark gap changes.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
8522
Report Number(s):
UCRL-CR-132949; YN0100000; YN0100000; TRN: AH200121%%275
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 8 Mar 1999
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

LANL studies of ESD spark energy discharge through September 2019
Technical Report · Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · OSTI ID:8522

Deflagration-to-detonation transition project. Quarterly report, June-August 1979
Technical Report · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1980 · OSTI ID:8522

Laser-induced spark ignition of CH{sub 4}/air mixtures
Journal Article · Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1999 · Combustion and Flame · OSTI ID:8522