Quality Air Management

Baghouse Dust Collector

Friday, May 21, 2010

Plasma/Laser Cutters Cause Fires

Some people have used Quenchers, and other style spark arrestors in plasma and laser cutting applications but still experienced fires in their dust collectors. Sparks are only one issue to deal with these applications. A good spark arrestor is definitely needed to stop sparks and embers, but, it is no guarantee against fires in the dust collector.

The problem:

1. The operator may have to reset the heat setting of the plasma head. It could be generating too much atomic static particles. This causes a "painting" effect on the cartridge media, eventually clogging it.

2. Large heavy particles of molten metal can be generated in the process.

3. You should use spun bond wide pleat cartridges, to ensure proper clean out of the cartridges. That way the dust will spread over a large surface of media, instead of on the outer surface only.

4. Current cartridges that are clogging over time (can vary from hours to weeks, depending on loading). When clogging occurs, the air flow drops and sparks can slip through any spark arrestor (not just the Quencher). This sets fire to the combustible dust accumulated on the surface of the cartridges.

Normally, plasma cutters have different characteristics depending on the settings of the cutter torch. The quantity of dust produced is relatively small. At some torch settings the dust is reactive by initiating an atomic bond between the dust and the surface of the cartridge, forming a hard durable impervious coating which totally or partially plugs the filter media. This mechanism is an inherent part of the plasma coating process to put wear resistant coatings on shafts, turbine blades etc. that allow the parts to receive very long lives. In the plasma coating machinery, the key to collecting the overspray in cartridge or fabric collectors is to allow the atomic bond to dissipate. This is accomplished by extending the time that particles travel from the torch to the filter media elements. In plasma coating systems at this time, depending on torch settings will vary from 0.5 to 0.8 seconds depending on the metals being sprayed.

In plasma cutting applications often the dust being emitted from the torch does not require any special considerations. In fact, collectors can operate for many months quite well with moderate pressure drops. Then the torch settings are changed because of various factors such as the composition or thickness of the pieces that are cut. As the settings of the gun or the speed of the cut is changed, the dust can act as a plasma coating torch and the cartridges start plugging. Sparks are often produced. If the dust is combustible the sparks may ignite the coating on the cartridges. Normally the fuel on the cartridge surface is not very heavy so the fires do not damage the housing of the collector. The cartridges are then usually replaced. The QUENCHER spark arresters are sometimes applied to limit the risk of fires and extend cartridge life. In the tandem horizontal type collectors, the cartridges are usually tight spaced, so, as the pressure drop rises, the pleats are pinched in the valleys so the pressure drop goes up. Combustible dusts can put pounds of dust to be stored in the cartridges to fuel a fire in the collectors. However, the squeezing of the pleats also causes pressure drop to increase and slow the flow through the dust collector. This often allows dust to be released into the work area.


Although spark arrestors will protect the system from sparks, pieces of molten metal go through the spark arrestor unaffected. These heavy, hot particles lodge on the surface of the cartridge and ignite the combustible dust coating. The heavy molten particles need to be dropped out of the system prior to the spark arrestor and collected safely, so as not to cause a fire in that collection device. Cyclones and drop out boxes are sometimes used for this. However, be aware that these devices have little effect on sparks / embers which are light buoyant particles and slip through to the dust collector.

An excellent example of these effects was the experience of the Day division of Donaldson who supplies this design. In cutting the filter mounting plates for their design they plasma cut holes in a 1/4 inch thick plate. They found that the filters plugged quickly in the after filters. They added distance in the filters venting the operations. This experience occurred 20 years ago and we do not know how this operation is now performing.

Our recommendation is to replace the current cartridges with a wide spaced stiffened spun bond media carried and precoat the cartridges with a 1/64 inch thick coating of inert pre-coat material.

We suggest you send each job application data (layouts & pictures) to QAM technical support at gary@qamanage.com and/or call him at (519) 746-2424. We’ve dealt with plasma cutting applications for decades and feel that yours would be a common problem. If you contact us, we'll be happy to work with you on this.

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