1990 HELMHOLTZ PRIZE (award ceremony on 19 March 1990)
Dr. Bodo Plewinsky for his work "Heterogene Detonationen und indirekte Zündvorgänge" (Heterogeneous detonations and indirect ignition processes)

1990 Prizewinner: Heterogeneous detonations

Bodo Plewinsky, who was born in Potsdam in 1939, studied chemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he obtained his doctorate in 1971 and habilitated in 1978. He remained connected to the Freie Universität Berlin from 1978 to 2008 as an associate lecturer. In 1982, he joined the BAM Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing) in Berlin and was a research assistant at the "Reaktionen mit Sauerstoff" (Reactions with Oxygen) laboratory of the "Chemische Sicherheitstechnik" (Chemical Safety Technology) division. In this division, he led the "Explosionsdynamik" (Explosion Dynamics) project group from 1986 to 2002. He retired in 2002.

The second work that was awarded the Hermann von Helmholtz Prize in 1990 in the field of "Chemical and Physical Safety Technology" dealt with "Heterogeneous detonations and indirect ignition processes". The author was Dr. Bodo Plewinsky of the BAM Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing) in Berlin. Heterogeneous detonations take place in heterogeneous systems that consist of two or more phases. They occur on liquid films as well as on the surfaces of compact liquid layers, in aerosols, in powders and on wicks.

The reason for Dr. Plewinsky's investigations had been an accident in the laboratory of a German chemical plant. In this laboratory, scientists intended to burn tetramethyl-dihydrogen-disiloxane (TMDS), which moistened a wick, in a calorimetric bomb in pure oxygen at a pressure of about 40 bar. Although there was no intrinsic explosion hazard for the gas surrounding the wick since the composition of the gas phase was above the upper explosion limit, the ignition caused a heavy detonation within the bomb and destroyed it entirely.

Dr. Plewinsky repeated the experiment in a modified form. With a high-velocity camera that was able to take up to 24000 pictures/s, he watched the flame spread along a TMS-moistened cotton wick after the ignition in pure oxygen, and saw how this led to a detonation of the wick. First, a conical flame front spread along the wick at a speed of about 1300 m/s, but after about 1/5000 s, the combustion reaction spread to the surrounding headspace although its composition was above the upper explosion level (UEL) so that, even in this case, a homogeneous gas detonation was impossible. The cause of the above-mentioned laboratory accident had, hence, been a wick detonation. In addition, Dr. Plewinsky was able to observe the phenomenon of the indirect ignition process. The ignition of a flame on a flammable liquid is possible even if the composition of the gas phase is above the UEL and if the direct path between the ignition source and the liquid surface is blocked by a barrier.

Dr. Bodo Plewinsky stated on this occasion that the systematic investigation of surface detonation and indirect ignition is of great importance for safety engineering processes of chemical plants where, for example, the oxidation or chlorination of hydrocarbons are performed. Later, Dr. Plewinsky and his colleagues worked in the field of surface detonations. They discovered that surface detonations cannot be prevented by mechanical barriers. They further investigated how heterogeneous detonations occur in model foams and how the bubbles of a gaseous oxidant in an organic solvent are made to explode by shock waves.

Literature

B. Plewinsky: Heterogene Detonationen und indirekte Zündvorgänge (Heterogeneous detonations and indirect ignition processes). PTB-Mitteilungen 100, (1990), 266