Determination of the critical distance in the procedure of explosive welding

Abstract

Introduction/purpose: When performing the explosive welding procedure, for the safety of workers, it is necessary to take into account the minimum distance between the workers and the place of explosion at the time of explosion. Negligence can cause temporary hearing loss, rupture of the eardrum and in some cases even the death of workers. The aim of this paper is to determine the critical distance based on the mass of explosive charge required for explosive welding, provided that the limit pressure is 6.9 kPa in the case of temporary hearing loss and 35 kPa in the case of eardrum rupture. This paper does not take into account other effects of the explosion than those caused by the shock wave. Methods: Depending on the type of explosion, the equivalent explosive mass was calculated. Based on the equivalent explosive mass and the limit pressure, the minimum distances were calculated using the Sadovsky and Kingery-Bulmash equations. Results: The corresponding tables show the results of the calculation of the critical distance of workers from the place of the explosion when there may be temporary hearing loss or rupture of the eardrum. The calculated value of the critical explosion distance by the KingeryBulmash method, under the condition of the maximum pressure for temporary hearing loss, is 5.62% lower than the distance value obtained by the Sadovsky method while the value of the critical explosion distance calculated by the Kingery-Bulmash method, under the condition of the maximum pressure for eardrum rupture, is 7.83% lower than the value obtained by the Sadovsky method. Conclusion: The results of the calculation showed that the critical distance from the explosion can be successfully calculated and that the obtained values have small differences depending on the applied calculation method.

Keywords

• explosion welding
• critical distance
• shock wave
• eardrum damage
• risk matrix