Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The compaction of dry powders by vibrations likely to be encountered by dry powder extinguishers in service (peak accelerations up to 2.0g n, frequencies in the range 10 Hz to 100 Hz) has been studied. Preliminary results indicate that higher levels of compaction than can be achieved by these vibrations result from impacting the container of powder onto a rigid surface, at a frequency of 1 Hz, from a height of 1.5 cm. Further study of the problem is recommended.