Presenter: Jeffrey Foisel and James Haiser

Unexpected and/or unaccounted-for pressure sources can lead to serious overpressure events (explosions) in both laboratory and manufacturing environments. This session will cover the basic physics and chemistries associated with pressure generation, and the types of hazards created when excessive pressure builds in various containers and systems. The session will review common sources of pressure and provide a set of simple examples to demonstrate how pressure can be estimated and calculated, in addition to typical impact of excessive pressure on various systems, highlighted with a case study. The technical content presented will remain basic but will demonstrate how chemical reactions and temperature can change the pressure of a system, often in unexpected ways.