Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

This paper has established mathematical models which describe the steady-state heat transfer in the self-heating process of dusts around a working power cable. The self-heating behavior of the dusts was discussed by the numerical solutions of the established models associated with the tested self-heating parameters. Critical spontaneous igniting conditions for the dusts with and without inner heat sources were compared using typical coal dusts. The results show that the self-heating dusts around the power cable are very easy to ignite spontaneously. The small working power cable acted as a weak inner heat source of the dusts around the cable plays an important role in the self-heating of the dusts. Inversely, the spontaneous ignition of the dusts around the cable may cause a power cable fire.