What is the New NFPA 660 Combustible Dust Standard About?
What is the New NFPA 660 Combustible Dust Standard About?
Sooner rather than later, the new NFPA 660 Combustible Dust Standard will take effect and significantly impact industrial facility owners and operators. NFPA 660 will consolidate all existing combustible dust standards into a single streamlined document. In theory, it will lead to increased site safety and reduced standard conflicts.
But what is NFPA 660, what does it mean for the industry at large, and when will it go into effect? Read on to learn the answers to these questions and related topics.
What are the NFPA Combustible Dust Standards?
Current industry standards from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) outline appropriate operational and safety guidelines for a variety of possible hazards. The NFPA combustible dust standards specifically relate to combustible dust dangers, including fires, flash fires, explosions, and more.
The NFPA combustible dust standards include:
These standards are widely used around the world and are vital for industrial facilities of many different types to ensure workplace safety. NFPA 652 is the “umbrella” standard that provides fundamental guidance on managing combustible dust hazards regardless of industry. NFPA 652 then directs the reader to the “commodity-specific” standards that focus on specific requirements for certain materials or products as a function of individual industries.
NFPA combustible dust standards are crucial because the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) – alongside other regulatory agencies – uses them to guide and enforce safety compliance at work sites and facilities. For example, OSHA may invoke the General Duty Clause and refer to NFPA combustible dust standards to enforce worksite safety if a facility is caught violating said standards. As experts in process safety and hazard analysis, BakerRisk is on many committees responsible for developing the above combustible dust standards, as well as the new NFPA 660 standard.
NFPA 660 Explained
NFPA 660 will be an “all-encompassing” new combustible dust standard that will combine the existing NFPA 652 standard along with the “commodity-specific” combustible dust standards. Over the past two years, NFPA 660 committee members have identified the fundamental content from each current standard and aligned that content with more industry-specific elements. The result: a superior and more comprehensive combustible dust standards document.
By consolidating legacy information, NFPA 660 will ensure that relevant and effective guidelines, recommendations, and best practices are all in the same location for easier access to this information. In doing this, facilities and worksites will be able to browse one standard to learn how to handle combustible dusts instead of looking through several. The hope is that this will reduce confusion and eliminate conflicting information found in existing standalone standards.
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NFPA 660 – CHANGES TO COMBUSTIBLE DUST STANDARDS
NFPA 660 will be a consolidating and clarifying document, not a massive change to existing combustible dust standards or practices. Most facility owners or operators do not need to worry about revamping their current combustible dust safety procedures from the ground up. For instance, facility operators will still need to perform a Dust Hazard Analysis (DHA) and revalidate every five years.
WILL THERE BE CHANGES TO DUST COLLECTION OR DUST MONITORING?
NFPA 660 won’t include major changes to dust collection system design or housekeeping requirements. But if you work with BakerRisk, you may already have a superior solution in our proprietary Dust Accumulation Monitor! Here’s BakerRisk team member Phil Parsons with more on how the Dust Accumulation Monitor works and its value to facilities:
“Current National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards place significant emphasis on the need to maintain housekeeping of dust accumulations outside of equipment to below different threshold thicknesses to minimize the associated risk. A common reference point for invoking a potential hazard is when a dust accumulation is sufficiently thick to prevent the underlying surface color from being distinguished. This puts a significant demand on facility staff and resources to periodically visually inspect elevated surfaces of a process facility, particularly if the process building volume is large or very tall. Inspections may involve the use of man-lifts, cranes, and a team of devoted personnel, resulting in a significant cost burden.
The need for a system capable of efficiently and automatically monitoring dust accumulations in a facility, maintaining safe working conditions, and, in turn, efficiently deploying housekeeping resources became evident to our team. Enter the BakerRisk Dust Accumulation Monitor! Our patented design automates the monitoring process with a system of monitors designed to detect dust levels in various locations. These monitors communicate with each other and send an alert to a central monitor. If dust accumulation exceeds acceptable levels, the Dust Accumulation Monitor will alert facility personnel via the central monitor. Contact us to learn more about this solution!”
Why is NFPA 660 Necessary?
At its core, NFPA 660 will be a beneficial, arguably necessary update to the current collective combustible dust standards. Why? Broadly, NFPA 660 should lead to fewer combustible dust incidents or hazards. NFPA 660 will help all affected organizations to follow the same set of safety practices. Consolidating all the standards into one set of rules will simplify those practices, minimize the potential for misunderstandings, and make the standards more applicable and accessible to worksites.
More specifically, the benefits of NFPA 660 will include: