Faults detection using thermal runaway criteria on different reaction kinetics

Abstract

During the operation of chemical reactors, a failure in the cooling system can lead the reactor to operate under the risk of thermal runaway. The present work proposes a study of failure detection, using the divergence criterion and the Thomas and Bowes criterion. In order to evaluate the detection performance, two exothermic reactions with different kinetics were chosen, and the results show that Thomas and Bowes criterion detects earlier the failures than the divergence criterion. However, Thomas and Bowes may present false alarm about the risk of thermal runaway.