CFD simulation of accidents in industrial batch stirred tank reactors

In this work, we have analyzed the application of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) to simulate consequences of stirrer failures, which can lead to reactor thermal runaway. For a typical industrial batch reactor, several “CFD computational experiments” have been carried out to explore runaway and non-runaway situations. Then the results of the CFD simulations, supported by an on-line divergence criterion, have been used to detect a dangerous reactor behavior. It has been found out, that even for the reactor operated at potentially safe conditions a failure of the stirring system can lead to serious thermal runaways. A significance of a proper location of temperature probe for an early runaway detection has also been discussed. A modification of the applied divergence criterion to avoid false alarms has been proposed and tested.