Runaway of Chemical Reactors: Parametric Sensitivity and Stability

Abstract

Although the runaway phenomenon is well known, an exact consistently used definition does not exist. Present paper is focused on the relation of reactor runaway and parametric sensitivity to stability. The relationship between criteria for reactor runaway and for thermal stability is also pointed out. Based on this critical review new methods based on parametric sensitivity and stability analysis for reactor runaway analysis are proposed in the paper. General runaway criteria based on the application of Ljapunov’s indirect method in the geometric and phase space have been developed. To illustrate the relation of the proposed reactor stability analysis to the commonly used runaway criteria a first order reaction was chosen. The application of the suggested method is also presented on a more complex problem, the Uckron-I test problem.