Natural Gas Detection 1

[firguy]

Question: What would be the appropriate type of natural gas detection system for a natural gas fueled industrial oven in a large warehouse/forging facility? Is there a specific type of detection system, spacing, etc? The model codes do not require a detection system, however, the owner has voluntarily installed a system.
I have attached a cut sheet for the proposed type of detection device.
Thank you in advance.

 

[IRstuff]

Depends on what the detector is supposed to warn about. You could start here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3957/is_200504/ai_n13617610/

and then Google for detectors, and there appears to be plenty of them.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[danw2]

My answer is none.

Good piping practice ensures that gas piping doesn't leak. And the mercaptan in the gas is there so humans smell it and make a stink about it so the leak is fixed.

Flame safety sensor/control ensures that the oven's fuel supply is shutdown within second of loss-of-flame detection. This is not new, untested 'technology', it's decades old standard design practice.

If the flame safety is up to snuff, there isn't real reason to be concerned.

There are plants with dozens of gas fired furnaces/ovens/kilns that have no independent gas detection sensor/alarms that I go into where I have zero concerns about safety.

What's the root fear that stand-alone gas detection is needed? Where's the gas going to come from?

If this company wants to blow money, the conventional sensor is a combustible gas (methane) LEL (lower explosive limit) sensor.

 

[danw2]

There might be a case for detection and alarming for CO, either for poor venting or for situations with carburizing furnaces at positive pressure where the endo generators are producing a gas mixture with ~20% CO component.

Because of its toxicity, detecting CO makes more sense than detecting methane for a commercially designed (code compliant) oven/furnace.

 

[msquared48]

Gets back to the old Canary in the cage in the coal mine. Primitive, but is still works. Just not for the Canary...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask