A detonation flame arrester (also spelled arrestor) is a device fitted to the opening of an enclosure or to the connecting pipe work of a system of enclosures and whose intended function is to allow flow but prevent the transmission of flame propagating at supersonic velocity and characterized by a shock wave. ( designed to prevent the transmission of a detonation).
The first patented detonation flame arrester was developed by Nicholas Roussakis et al., U.S. Patent 4,909,730 and was issued on March 20, 1990. Its need was initially driven by new environmental legislation, namely the Clean Air Act of the USA. Regular flame arresters had been around for years, but they had very limited applications.
There have been at least a dozen more since then. A few are as follows;