The Problem
A manufacturing of engineered building products used a composition of wood and ABS plastics in an extrusion, batch-type process to create their products.

The process had a deflagration which blew off the top of the blender unit and propagated the flame to an outside dust collector downstream. The inside process equipment sustained major damage, but no workers were injured.

Solution
Since the blender was inside the plant, potential explosions could not be vented to the outside. The blender was fitted with an explosion suppression system. A chemical isolation system was added to the dust extraction duct. The outside dust collector was already equipped with explosion vents but a chemical isolation system was added to the inlet duct.