Some characteristics of the self-heating of the large scale storage of biomass

Increasingly large quantities of biomass are being transported and stored for use in bioenergy applications. This large storage of biomass is liable to undergo self-heating sometimes leading to ignition and fire. Numerous studies on both the laboratory scale and by using theoretical analyses have been made in order to predict their behaviour but these are made on the basis of a number of simplifying assumptions. It is clear from studies reported here of self-heating in 40 kt storage piles of wood pellets that the process is much more complex than the simpler models suggest since thermal waves are observed.