Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt

Tasks

All explosion protection departments of PTB (departments 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7) give advice to manufacturers and users of explosion protected equipment as well as to ministries, authorities and mutual insurance associations ("Berufsgenossenschaften"). In addition to that PTB is member in a number of national, European and international standards committees in the field of explosion protection.

In working group 3.43 these activities are focussed and co-ordinated for the field of material properties. The main area is advice to German federal ministries, especially the Federal Ministry of Transport.

An adequate characterization of the flammable substances forms the basis of practical explosion protection. The relevant properties of the substances, such as flammability, ignitability (explosiveness) and flame transmission capability, are quantified by safety characteristics.

Making these data accessible to the public is another task of the working group.

This is done in cooperation with DECHEMA and Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM)  by building up and maintaining the database CHEMSAFE . The database  contains safety characteristics of about 3000 flammable gases, liquids and dusts. A yearly update of the database allows to publish recent results of the working group 3.41: "Safety Characteristics".

Furthermore the database is used as a tool for developping estimation and calculation methods. These methods can help to estimate safety characteristics if measurements are to expensive or time consuming.