I did not read the whole document yet however I did notice the committee, whatever the reason, did leave out some important definitions. Also notice in one explanation of a table in the explosion chapter the explanation remains incomplete and could be misleading to the reader.

In numerous places within the document it discuss the necessity for the source of energy causing mission to meet the minimum ignition energy requirements for that fuel. The question comes in as to what is the definition of minimum ignition energy. This definition does not appear in the definition section of the document.

There is another explanation in the explosive chapter that is not complete. When discussing the minimum ignition energy needed to ignite a specific gas the document states that the number shown in the table could vary depending on the fuel air ratio mixture. The problem with this is that there is a recognized test to determine this minimum ignition energy. Where it is true that the value could change based upon the fuel air mixture the standard used for determining this value also states that with the fuel air mixture being the same the resulting value could change by +/-10%. By leaving out the fact a person reading this would not know that the fuel air ratio can be the same and still have a different value reached by the testing. I would believe it’s an important statement to be made.

My question is if minimum ignition energy is so important to understanding how do you nation takes place why would a committee not won a definition for this term. I also failed to see the justification in not putting in the complete statement from the Standard used for developing a value as to the minimum ignition energy for a specific gas not be included in the explanation.

Some may consider this trivial information to where it’s not needed in the document. If so, let it be. I do miss the whole process where they would publish of the public inputs from everyone in one document so they could be reviewed by everyone and see the justification for the action taken on the comment. Just my personal thoughts.

Jim Mazerat
Forensic Investigations Group