Development of a Device to Measure Mass and Resuspension Rate of Dust inside Confined Environments

A dust explosion is one of the key security issues for many industrial, pharmaceutical and agro-alimentary plants and for the safety of the workers. We have developed an optoelectronic sensor system to determine the mass of deposited dust and the resuspension rate. The authors also mount antennas on an optoelectronic sensor system to perform measurements remotely. The technique used is based on a non-invasive light absorption method. The paper reports a cost analysis in order to demonstrate the possibility to use, in our optoelectronic sensor system, several sensors to monitor large volume. In this paper the authors present the sensor system, the test and calibration of its components together with the results and the error analysis, demonstrating experimentally what is the maximum and the minimum readable range.