NFPA 652, Standard on Fundamentals of Combustible Dust is a new combustible dust standard that is currently under development by the National Fire Protection Association’s Fundamentals of Combustible Dusts Committee. The committee will be holding its second Draft Meeting in St. Petersburg, FL, which Brian Edwards, PE will be attending to learn more about the direction of the standard.
In its current form, NFPA 652 is designed to be the single standard that will be used in addressing general combustible dust compliance at facilities. It will be the standard that all of the industry specific standards cite in regards to providing the specific properties and tests for determining whether a dust is combustible, as well as requirements for collection of the samples.
Additionally, NFPA 652 consolidates the performance-based design option and process hazard analysis methods from the combustible dust standards. These other standards will likely begin referring to NFPA 652 in regards to these topics, and for topics on hazard management, mitigation and prevention, and for management systems. The hazard management chapter provides the design and programmatic requirements for a variety of facility equipment and processes in order to manage a combustible dust hazard. This chapter includes things like separation and segregation, and velocity design requirements for dust collectors and dust collection lines. Finally, the management systems chapter includes all of the management specific topics seen in the other standards, such as maintenance and training requirements.
By pulling all of the general combustible dust standards like housekeeping, hazard analyses, and PPE from the industry specific standards, NFPA is providing more correlation between the standards. It is also allowing for the other dust standards to be more streamlined and focused on the industries that they cover.